


University Challenge

by Tezla



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Ancient Technology, Angst, Bruce has a condition, F/F, M/M, Romance, Tony has his own TV show, Tony is often immature, Tony likes to dress up, Tony’s armour is actually made of iron, all sex is consensual and between adults, mention of poly Bruce (background), penguins can tell the future, school competition (Egg Race), someone out there somewhere must have an administration in middle-management kink, trigger warning: accusation of paedophilia (unfounded), trigger warning: mention of potential child abuse (physical)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 23:04:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 95,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3668496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tezla/pseuds/Tezla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do we need to have a chat?” said Tony. “About the birds and the bees? The Associate Professors and the Principals? As a senior member of staff here at the ol’ U of M, I feel duty bound to mentor you. No matter how personally distasteful I find your appalling taste in men.”</p><p>Clint Barton was the youngest and newest member of the History department at Marivale University, and he was still learning how to cope with everything his career threw at him. Then Phil Coulson came to work at a school nearby.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. History is Full of Drama Queens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Selenay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selenay/gifts).



> About a year ago, someone expressed a wish for a University professors AU to compliment all of those High School AUs. I’m sure several others have been written since, but anyway, here’s my version.
> 
> I’ve tried to avoid too much technical detail, which is hard to do when writing about education. Because of this, much of the action in the story is centred on a competitive event. For practical reasons, I’ve drastically reduced the size of a school’s administrative department. (However, if you have a secret passion for administration, this story is for you.)
> 
> My knowledge of the US university system is limited to research via the internet, so I apologise for any mistakes I’ve made. I’ve studied at two universities and worked at three, so I hope that in some way makes up for it.

“History,” barked Tony. “No one gets out alive!” He slammed both palms down on the desk in front of him, leaned forward, and stared at the class. The class stared back at him, goggle-eyed. It was now a game of chicken to see who blinked first.

“You,” said Stark, snapping his fingers then pointing randomly somewhere to his left. “Yeah, you, over at the back. Gimme an example from this week’s reading. Someone else who said something clever?”

The bell went and the class looked puzzled. Then, because Tony didn’t seem to be about to stop them, they packed up their things and left.

Stark’s classes always overran. Always, always, always. It wasn’t deliberate. It was just unfortunate that, for a history teacher, Tony Stark had a lousy grip on time. Clint scowled at him from the doorway, and just because it would annoy Clint, Tony left the notes from his seminar on the board, and walked out.

“Hey, Stark,” yelled Clint, but it was too late. He turned and erased Tony’s words. Behind him, Clint’s class filed in and found their desks.

Clint let his class sit down and prepare themselves as he steeled himself to teach the first lesson most of his students had ever had at university level. It was one of his favourite classes to teach, actually. He made a point of memorizing their faces, and watched them change over the course of their degrees from uncertain teenagers to confident adults. Mostly. They came through the door fresh from Fresher’s Week; the class fairly evenly split into thirds of people who thought they knew everything, people who knew they knew nothing, and people too hung over to care. Generally, everyone was equally baffled by the topic of the first seminar of History 101: ‘What is History?’ It turned out that students could sit through ten or more years of history lessons and no one would bother to teach them the basics.

“Good morning, class,” he said once he was ready. “My name is Dr Barton and I will be your teacher for History 101. Any questions on the course material – your first port of call should be the course handbook. You’ll find lists of all of the reading material that you’ll need for each weeks’ classes in there.” He picked up his own copy of the handbook and waved it around to illustrate what it looked like. Honestly, you couldn’t be too careful. Too many times Clint had received panicked emails time stamped four in the morning asking if he could please email a student the reading material for a class later that day. A class students were supposed to have spent ten hours preparing for. “The course handbook also contains your class schedule, your essay questions, information about exams, and other general information about the course,” Clint continued. “If, and I stress only if, you can’t find what you’re looking for in there, please send me an email.” Several students in the front row started to look puzzled. “My email address is on the inside cover of your course booklet.”

A student in the front row tentatively started to raise her hand.

“I have some spare handbooks with me, so if you don’t already have one, see me at the end of the class. If you lose your course booklet, you can download a pdf version from the school website. If you don’t have internet access for any reason, ask a friend if you can look at their booklet.”

Clint spent the next couple of minutes running through some general admin about the course. Entirely essential, but entirely boring to everyone in the room, if the fidgeting was anything to go by.

“So we’re going to start this course by asking some fundamental questions about the topic and the sources that we’re going to use both in this course and throughout your degree. The first question I want you all to think about today is ‘what is history?’ I’m going to stress that there are no right or wrong answers to this. I just want to hear your points of view. Think about this as a discussion to get us started.”

And so it began.

Three hours later – three hours of teaching the same class to three different groups later – Clint was in his office with a late lunch and a cup of coffee, trying to relax, but in reality going through his emails and getting angry.

There was a knock at his door.

“Come in,” said Clint.

“Did you see it?” said Natasha.

“I’m just looking at it now.” Clint waved his hand towards his computer monitor, and a piece of lettuce fell out of his sandwich and onto his lap.

“Where do they get off on this?” said Clint. “How can they possibly be saying this? It’s Week One, for crying out loud.”

Natasha shrugged, dragged Clint’s guest chair over to his desk and sat down.

“Other universities are going through the same thing. It’s the economy,” said Natasha.

“But the whole department?” said Clint. “I’ve got a hundred and five students taking History 101 this year. We’ve got nearly three hundred students taking History, Ancient History and Classics modules altogether.”

“That’s the point though, isn’t it?” said Natasha. “We’re a small department in a small university. And the university is starting to position itself more towards business degrees.”

“Yeah, because that’s what everyone needs,” said Clint, sarcastically.

“You can see their point, though, can’t you,” said Natasha.

“Well, yeah. And no. It’s short-sighted. It completely misses the point of what our courses are for.”

“Preaching to the choir,” said Natasha.

“Yeah.”

“They’re talking about phasing it out a year at a time, so no one has to change school.”

“I saw. But still.”

“Yeah.” Natasha leaned forward and ruffled Clint’s hair. “If your job’s at risk, you’ll have to find a sugar daddy.”

“Ha ha,” said Clint, and stuffed the rest of the sandwich into his mouth. He chewed quickly. “You’d think the money Stark gives this place would be more than enough to keep the department afloat.”

“It’s not just about money, is it though?” said Natasha. “It’s about politics.”

“I need to go shoot something,” said Clint.

Natasha grinned. “Isn’t that your answer to everything? Don’t you have another class at four?”

“Yeah, and I’ve got a shitload of admin to do before then,” said Clint.

“So? I’ll get you one of those Velcro targets for your office,” said Natasha.

“You’re a peach.” Clint paused. “You’re taking this all very well.”

Natasha shrugged. “It’s only the start of the year. Anything could happen between now and then.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” said Clint.

“On that note,” said Natasha. “I have to go and introduce some sophomores to Homer’s Odyssey, so if you’ll excuse me.”

“Later,” said Clint.

Natasha smiled and let herself out. Clint flexed his fingers and prepared himself to tackle the university’s attendance monitoring system.

At half-past six, he shut his laptop down and left his office. He still had some work to do that evening, but he’d taught History 101 four years running now: twice as a PhD student and twice as a full-time member of staff, so he wasn’t overly concerned. He had pretty much memorised the entire module. Because he was the newest member of staff, he also found himself in charge of the community outreach programmes, but that was also something he’d done before, so he didn’t feel out of his depth. Finally, he was starting to feel as if he’d got a handle on things. Starting to feel like he was fitting in and knew how his career would go for the next few years. And then there’d been that email. Clint’s original plan for the evening had been a self-congratulatory beer in recognition of a successful first day’s teaching. He made the tactical decision that it was still a good plan. He reached his car and threw his bag in the back, started the engine and headed for Thor’s bar.

Thor’s bar was an unusual place for several reasons. Firstly, it was the closest bar to the university, so a large number of staff went there. Since they went there to let off steam and bitch about each other, the atmosphere could be raucous, tense, or occasionally both, depending on who was present and who had overheard something they shouldn’t have. Secondly, because Thor’s was the closest bar to the university, it also got quite a few students. This in itself wasn’t a problem. By unspoken agreement, the university staff gravitated towards the saggy armchairs in the lounge bar and treated it as their own personal kingdom, while the students congregated in the saloon bar with its frontier-style decor and easily wiped-down surfaces. The third reason Thor’s bar was unusual was Thor himself. Thor had been a professional hockey player for a few years until taken out of the game by an injury. He’d healed, but had never returned to the game and had gone back to school instead. Rumour had it that he had several degrees to his name, but that didn’t explain why he’d opted to open a bar. When questioned on the subject, Thor would always deflect with a sales pitch for his beer. The combination of decent beer and his presence tended to shut the argument down pretty fast.

“Hey, Thor,” said Clint, heading straight for the bar and swinging himself up onto a stool.

“Clint,” said Thor, nodding in his direction while polishing a glass. “The usual?”

“Yeah,” said Clint.

Thor poured his drink and passed it over.

“Anyone else in?” Clint asked.

“A few,” said Thor. “There are some young people next door. They are acting as if they have just discovered alcohol, so I assume they are students.”

“They’ll learn,” said Clint. “Fast, probably.” Clint looked around. “Who’s that guy?” he said, tilting his head to one side to indicate the general direction.

“I do not know,” said Thor. “He has just arrived. If he’s not with the university, perhaps he is with the school.”

“Maybe,” said Clint. The university was on the edge of town, and the only other centres of employment nearby were a school, a brewery, and a lumber yard.

The man was in his forties and dressed in a smart but sombre dark suit whose colour was impossible to determine in the dim light of the bar. He stared down into a cocktail glass on the table before him, looking as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

“Happy hour’s not so happy for that guy, huh?” said Clint. He turned round to face the bar again, but before he could say anything else, his phone beeped. He fished it out of his pocket.

“It’s Steve,” Clint told Thor. “He’s coming over.”

Thor nodded. “Luckily, there has just been a delivery of his favourite beer.”

Clint looked down at his phone. Steve was going to need more than one beer. The text was mostly a stream of vowels and consonants that included the words ‘fucking tony fucking stark’. Before Clint could put the phone back in his pocket, the door rattled and Steve strode in.

“What? You texted me from the car park?” asked Clint.

Steve shrugged, and Thor wordlessly handed Steve a drink.

“What’s he done this time?” asked Clint.

“Three,” said Steve. “I’ve had three students sent to me already this week. It’s only Monday.”

He took a swig from his drink and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Honestly, I don’t know why I bother.”

Clint raised his eyebrows at the non-sequitur.

“Not with the counselling, obviously,” said Steve. “With Stark.”

That was a sentiment that everyone could understand.

“I always know when you’re really pissed at him. You switch to using his last name.”

Thor smiled. “Not entirely true,” he said. “Often he finds a few other words to call him first.”

“I guess maybe he’s a little extra stressed because of that email,” said Clint, surprised to find himself sticking up for Tony.

“Well, aren’t we all,” said Steve. “But you don’t need to make excuses for him. Honestly, I know what he’s like. If I have to explain to one more student that Tony isn’t singling them out for special punishment or ‘looking at me in a funny way’.” Steve let out a huff of breath. “He’s a nightmare tonight, going on about losing his job when no one knows what’s happening yet. I’d only been home for half an hour before I had to turn round and come back out again.”

Steve drank, and Thor reached for another bottle.

“No, really, I can’t. Not tonight. Not if I’m driving back,” said Steve.

“I can give you a lift,” offered Clint.

“That’s okay,” said Steve. “He’s bound to have gone for a drive by the time I get back.”

“If you’re sure.”

“Sure, but thanks,” said Steve. He paid for his drink and left.

“Never a dull moment with those two,” said Clint, mostly to fill the silence.

“It is best not to think about it,” said Thor.

Clint turned in his seat, and found the man in the suit looking in his direction. Clint raised his drink in salute, and the man did likewise with his glass, his mouth forming the smallest of smiles.

“So, how about one of your stories, Thor? You usually know how to cheer a guy right up.”

Thor beamed and launched into a monologue that included dinosaurs, some kind of Nazi death-ray, and the largest pumpkin in Texas. Half-way into the tale, Clint noticed that the sombre man was finally smiling.

Clint went home and pretended to spend two hours working on the book of his thesis, when in reality he was watching re-runs of Cheers while eating potato chips. The rest of the week proceeded in a similar vein. By Friday, he was cross-eyed with teaching and had (in no particular order) spent an hour consoling Natasha about her students who didn’t know what ‘literature’ was when they signed up for a literature course; spent twenty minutes listening to Bruce repeatedly define ‘democracy’ at him while asking why no one else seemed to grasp this; and spent ten minutes diplomatically trying to steer a crying girl towards Steve’s Counsellor’s office.

He finished work early and escaped to the bar, only to find Tony Stark holding court and discussing his plans for this year’s Great Egg Race.

The annual Egg Race was something that took place the day after the year’s final exams, and so wasn’t due to happen for another ten months. In many respects it was like a traditional Egg Race (if there ever could be said to be such a thing), but Tony, in his capacity as Professor of History of Science, Technology and Medicine, each year set a theme based on an ancient invention which was to be the mechanism by which eggs were transported unbroken from one side of the course to another. One year the theme had been wheeled transport, and so students had created their own chariots and sent them careening around a mock forum. Another year the theme had been catapults, which in retrospect everyone should have known would be an unmitigated disaster. Competition was fierce, partly because the prizes included bursaries. This year, the theme was apparently ‘water management technology’.

Thor saw Clint enter and started to pour him a beer.

“It’s not sexy,” said Natasha.

“Excuse me?” said Tony. “I don’t know how you could even...”

“Boats, yes. We could totally do boats,” said Natasha.

“Granted, boats are cool, but there’s...”

“Could we not have something a little less messy this year?” said Bruce.

“You’re failing to see the big picture,” said Tony.

“Which is?” said Clint, taking his beer and parking himself on his usual stool.

“That it’s already decided,” said Tony. “And it will be cool. You’ll see. Aqueducts. Aqueducts are cool.”

Steve sighed.

“What? You know it,” said Tony.

“Drains,” said Steve.

“So?”

“Drains and sewage,” said Steve, pushing his glasses so that they sat higher up on the bridge of his nose. “This is a law suit waiting to happen.”

“So’s your face,” said Tony, then appeared to snap himself out of whatever teenage mood he’d stumbled into. He waved a hand. “I’ll steer them towards aqueducts, pipes, Archimedes screws. That kind of thing. We’ll help them set up.”

“Is this just some kind of plan to see your students soaking wet?” asked Clint, who felt like he had a lot of Stark-baiting left to do.

Steve slowly crossed his arms and watched Tony flap his lower lip about.

“No, absolutely not,” said Stark. He shot a look at Steve. “I’ve got all the studmuffin I need right here.” He waved in Steve’s direction because who else could he be talking about really.

“You’re not soaking me ‘for science’ either,” said Steve.

Tony looked distinctly put out.

“Shadouf,” said Bruce. “The Egyptian thing? Would that work?”

“I suspect you misunderstand the term ‘race’, Brucie,” said Tony, now slinging an arm around Bruce’s shoulders.

Clint turned round on his stool until he faced the bar. Natasha walked over to him.

“They been at this for long?” asked Clint.

“About half an hour,” said Thor.

“All my life,” said Steve.

“Came here straight from my last class,” said Tony.

“Let him rant,” said Natasha. “If the rumours of the department closing down are true, he stands to lose more than anyone.”

“Aye,” said Thor. “Lady Stark will be spinning in her grave.”

It was a well-known fact that the Maria Stark foundation had been instrumental in building the History school nearly forty years ago, and had been helping fund it ever since.

“Yeah, okay, fair point,” said Clint. “But it’s early days.”

“But if it is the beginning of the end,” said Natasha.

“Then we’ll make this a Great Egg Race to remember, naturally,” said Clint.

“And so began the great plan to make water catch fire and then explode,” said Natasha.

Tony’s voice drifted over to them. “But honey, snookums, light of my life, we should mark this occasion.”

Steve turned his back on Tony and joined Thor, Clint and Natasha at the bar.

“Is he still going on about the Egg Race?” asked Clint.

“No,” said Steve, looking a little embarrassed. “Actually, now he’s talking about our anniversary. Don’t ask me how he got from one topic to the other.”

Because Tony couldn’t take no for an answer, he joined them at the bar, which meant that Bruce came too.

Clint tried to do the arithmetic in his head, but failed. “How many years is it? You were together before I started my PhD, before I moved down here.”

“Ten years,” said Steve.

“Ten glorious years,” amended Tony. “And every day I...”

“Thank your lucky stars that I put up with you?” asked Steve, smiling while he said it.

“Yes my love, my darling, my...”

“Enough,” said Natasha.

Steve moved his hand so it covered Tony’s mouth and temporarily shut him up.

“What are you going to get him?” Clint asked Tony, because he clearly felt like he hadn’t stirred things up enough.

Tony mumbled something but didn’t try to remove Steve’s hand.

“Yes. What’s suitable for the man who has supported you these last ten years?” said Bruce, weighing in with some stirring up of his own.

“How about a sainthood?” said Natasha.

Tony frowned and Steve pulled his hand away quickly.

“Eww, you licked me, Tony!” said Steve.

Tony looked a bit smug. “So? It’s not anything I haven’t done bef...”

“My hands are filthy, Tony.” Steve rubbed his wet hand on his thigh, examined it, then rubbed it on his thigh again.

“It’s ten years in November,” said Steve. “I thought it might be nice to have a little get-together. You know, invite a few friends.” Steve gestured around the room. “We could have it here.”

Tony looked distinctly put out. “We’re always here. No offence, Thor.”

“None taken,” said Thor.

“But we are. We’re always here. If we’re having a party, I want it somewhere else. Sorry, Thor. Somewhere different.”

“Is this a private party or can anyone join in?”

They turned to find a man in a suit standing a short distance away. Clint recognised him as the sombre man who’d been in the bar on Monday.

“Sorry to interrupt,” said the man. “But I can’t, er, get to the bar.”

That was true right enough. Between them they’d somehow all managed to block the guy’s access to alcohol.

“Sorry,” said Bruce, and moved aside.

“What can I get you?” asked Thor.

“I’ll give one of those a try,” said the man, pointing to a local brew. Thor poured him a beer, which the man took to a table a short distance away.

“What were we talking about?” said Clint.

“Stark,” said Bruce.

“Their anniversary,” said Natasha.

“We’ve got six weeks yet,” said Steve.

“Tons of time,” said Clint.

“Exactly,” said Steve.

“Only if you don’t want a proper party,” said Tony.

Steve sighed again.

“How about we throw the party for you?” said Bruce, who knew them both well enough to realise that they could spend the next six weeks arguing about it, then both be annoyed with each other that a decision hadn’t been made – while making everyone else’s life hell in the mean time. “If you like? Then it’ll be a surprise for both of you.”

“Okay,” said Steve, having thought about it for less than a second.

“Er, mmm,” said Tony. “I sense a trap.”

“Please?” said Bruce.

“If I have to listen to you bickering about this for another month, you might not make it to your anniversary,” Natasha told Tony.

“Well, that’s settled it, then,” said Tony. “You many plan our anniversary party. I favour a radiant assortment of decorations in indigo and cerise, while Steve wants something flouncy in taffeta.”

“Shut up, Tony,” said Steve.

“Yes, dear,” said Tony. He reached out to squeeze Steve’s hand affectionately, and any tension was broken.

At the nearby table, the stranger smiled.

“I think that that’s our cue, don’t you?” said Tony. “Time to eat?”

“Yeah,” said Steve. “Let’s go get dinner.”

“Leave you guys to plan,” said Tony. As Steve turned towards the door, Tony silently mouthed ‘big party’ at them, and indicated with his hands just how big he wanted this party to be. By the time they reached the door, they were holding hands. Steve gave a little wave as the door closed behind him.

“Tell me they didn’t plan that,” said Natasha.

“No,” said Bruce. “They didn’t plan talking us into arranging their party for them. Not even Tony’s that devious.”

“Uh-huh,” said Clint.

“So, we planning this thing?” said Natasha.

“Not me, not tonight,” said Clint. “I’ve got to make a start on that school outreach stuff. It’s the open day in two weeks and I’m supposed to be meeting the Principal on Monday.”

“Jennings, right?” said Natasha.

“No, new guy,” said Clint.

“Unknown quantity,” said Natasha.

“Not entirely,” said the stranger.

“Excuse me?” said Clint.

The stranger put his drink down and walked back over to them. “I’m the principal up at Twin Pines.” He put out his hand to Clint. “Phil Coulson.”

“Oh, hi,” said Clint. “Clint Barton.”

“I figured,” said Phil.

Phil leaned forward and shook Clint’s hand and something changed. A tingle of electricity ran through Clint, and he felt his mouth fall open as Phil looked directly at him and smiled.


	2. Collegiality and Outreach. So That’s What They’re Calling It Now

Now he knew something about the person he was meeting that evening, Clint found himself starting to look forward to the planning session with Principal Coulson. By mutual consent, they’d not discussed the open day on Friday evening, but get a group of teachers together in one room and not talking about work was not an option. Once Phil had admitted that he was in a similar profession, the History department had adopted him, and he spent the rest of the evening with them.

Monday went quickly, with four hours of teaching plus associated lesson prep and admin, and before he knew it, Clint was in his car heading towards Twin Pines School. He congratulated himself on remembering the way to the Principal’s office from his previous visits, and was preparing to knock when the door opened.

“Saw you pull up,” said Phil, putting out his hand for Clint to shake. “Come in. Coffee?”

“Yeah, please.”

“I don’t usually put a second pot on, but today has been one of those days. Take a seat.”

As Clint entered and found a chair, he noticed the coffee percolator bubbling away on a bookcase behind Phil’s desk.

“Nice,” he said, nodding in its direction.

“Essential,” said Phil. “Sometimes I barely leave the room. I bought it to save my sanity.”

“I get that,” said Clint.

“Of course, sometimes I also use it to torture other people,” said Phil with a shrug. “Withholding caffeine is a powerful incentive.”

“Oh, I get that too,” said Clint, smiling. “You did meet Stark the other day, right?”

“Saw him, didn’t chat. The guy with the goatee, right?”

“Right. Massive caffeine addict.”

“This is the part where you tell me he’s really a misunderstood genius and I should give him a chance?”

“He is, and you should, but he’s also an asshole,” said Clint.

“I’ll take your word for it. How do you take your coffee?”

“Black is fine.”

“Black it is.” Phil poured Clint a cup and handed it over.

“So, the open day,” said Clint.

“Straight to business, I like it,” said Phil, taking a sip from his coffee and putting it down.

“What do you know?”

“Well, from what I can gather, all of our students who we think will be applying to university get to go on trips next week. I and a few of my colleagues will be coming to you on Thursday with students interested in History, Classics, Economics and Business degrees. Another group of my colleagues will be taking potential Science and Medicine students upstate, while those poor students interested in English, Art and the Arts in general get shipped out to experience the delights of the local Community College, because we don’t have a local university that offers those subjects. And our budget won’t stretch to a road trip.”

“It’s a good college,” said Clint.

“If I sound bitter, it’s because I majored in English Lit.,” said Coulson.

“Okay.”

Phil took another sip of his coffee. “Er, when we arrive, we’ll split by department. I’ll be with the History people.”

Clint smiled.

“We get a tour, then some sample lectures to give the students an idea of the sort of thing they’ll be able to learn about. Is that right?”

“Essentially.” Clint shrugged. “I don’t know how they do things in Business and Economics, but what we do with potential History majors is give them a short questionnaire when they arrive, then by the time they’ve taken the tour we’ve allocated them into groups. We try to allocate students to the session they’re most likely to be interested in.”

“Okay, great,” said Phil.

“Well, maybe I’ve made it sound better than it is. There’s generally two sessions on warfare: ancient and modern, one session that is supposed to be about archaeology and ‘discovery’ but is actually about sources and methodology, and one session that changes every year, depending on what our PhD students are currently working on.”

“Well, it still sounds more than fair.”

“I think the philosophy behind it is that it makes it more likely that people will apply.”

“That’s probably right,” said Phil.

They sat in silence for a few seconds drinking their coffee.

“After the classes, we get all of you back together in one group for a summary session.” Clint smiled. “I think the main purpose of that – based on last year – is so that you guys don’t drive off and leave any of your students behind.”

“Jennings didn’t, did he?” said Phil.

“Er, no,” said Clint. “One of your guys did a headcount and found that two of your students were missing. We held everyone in the main lecture hall until we’d found them, which fortunately didn’t take too long, since they were actually back on the coach, using the back seat and not for its intended purpose.”

“Oh, so that’s what that rumour was about,” said Phil, as much to himself as to Clint.

“Do you have any other questions?” said Clint. “I mean, I know we can go through this by email, but we may as well discuss it while I’m here.”

“Yeah, this is better, don’t you think?” Phil drained the last of his coffee and put the cup down. “I’m supposed to talk to Emma about special requirements?”

“You should,” said Clint, “she’s good. But you can ask me now as well if you like.”

“We’ve got a hearing impaired student will be coming along,” said Phil.

“Speak to Emma. I know we’ve got staff with sign language, so that’s no problem.” Clint decided not to mention that one of those staff was him.

“She reads lips, but you should be aware.”

“Okay.”

Clint suddenly remembered the email that threatened the closure of the department, and suppressed a frown.

“Anything the matter?” asked Phil.

Clint looked up, saw Phil’s concerned expression, and took a chance. “Departmental stuff. Nothing I should actually be talking to you about.”

Phil pursed his lips and poured them both another coffee.

Clint considered his options and thought to hell with it. “There may not be any new intake in History next year.”

Phil raised his eyebrows. “That’s a shock.”

“Tell me about it.” Clint shrugged. “It’s just a suggestion. A rumour. At the moment, it’s nothing more than a scheme to make the university more specialised. It’s got everyone on edge.”

“I can imagine,” said Phil. “You know, the thing about this kind of rumour is that it often fuels its own fire.” He paused. “People start to question their own abilities, and you wind up with a department that sets itself up to fail.”

Clint mulled this over. “You could be right.”

“But just in case I’m not right – if the plans are real – what are you going to do about it?”

“Not sure. It’s early days.”

“Hmm. Well. You know, if you ever wanted to talk about it.”

“Thanks.” Clint realised he was staring into Phil’s eyes, and had maybe been doing that for too long. He dropped his gaze and pretended to contemplate his admittedly excellent coffee.

“You know,” said Phil, “your department puts a hell of a lot more back into the community than those guys in Business and Economics.”

“Well,” said Clint, “it’s a lot easier for students to engage with History than Economics. I wouldn’t want to submit anyone to our Economics professors.”

“Fair point,” said Phil. “But you should consider just how many people in the local area have actually met someone from your department, rather than those guys.” He paused. “So what is it again? The other major your school has a good reputation for? Sorry, but as you can tell, I’m new to the area.”

Clint smiled. “Modern Languages.”

“So it’s a School of History, Industry, Economics and Linguistic Development?” said Phil.

“Something like that,” said Clint. “Some guys at the end of World War II thought they saw a gap in the market. If you’re really interested, ask Stark. His family helped set it up.”

“Maybe I will,” said Phil.

They fell into companionable silence, and Clint chanced a look in Phil’s direction. Phil, naturally, was looking directly at him, but was also apparently lost in thought. “Do you have any more questions?” asked Clint.

“I can’t think of anything,” said Phil. “Actually, can I have your number?”

Clint fumbled his coffee cup slightly and put it down. “Yeah, sure. I can do that.”

“I promise I won’t call unless it’s important,” said Phil.

“That’s okay,” said Clint, then stopped as his brain caught up with his mouth. “Gimme your phone?”

Phil handed his Clint his phone, and Clint entered his number.

Phil looked down at the display and saved it. “Thanks,” he said. “So, Thor’s bar?”

“Yes?” said Clint.

“I take it that’s the traditional departmental watering hole?”

“Yeah, and then some,” said Clint. “The whole university uses it, but we seem to be in there most Mondays and Fridays.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” said Phil. “You don’t mind if I gatecrash again?”

“Nah, be my guest,” said Clint. “Just so long as you realise that once Tony and Steve find out who you are, you’ll be asked to referee their disputes. Seeing as how you’re an impartial witness.”

“Well, I’ll bear that in mind, too,” said Phil.

“So, I’ll be going, I guess,” said Clint.

“Okay. I suppose that’s my cue to get on with this admin.” Phil gestured over his shoulder to where a stack of paperwork stood waiting.

“Ouch,” said Clint. “I feel your pain.”

“You’re not working tonight?”

“In denial, at least until I get to the car,” said Clint, standing up and collecting the notes he’d brought with him.

“Well, in that case, I feel your pain too,” said Phil.

By the time Clint got back to his car he had a text message and Phil’s number.

Clint’s Tuesday started with his History 101 Lecture, something all one hundred-odd students were supposed to attend, but rarely did, even this early in the year. This was followed by two hours of teaching and then lunch. He found a quiet spot outside where he could enjoy the fresh air and early autumn sunshine. It took precisely ninety seconds for his peace and quiet to be invaded by Steve and Natasha.

“Hey,” said Steve, sliding onto the bench beside him.

“Hey,” said Natasha, sitting on Clint’s other side.

“Hi,” said Clint.

Steve squinted up at the sun, took his glasses off and polished them. Once he’d done that, he started to carefully unwrap his sandwich. Clint turned to look at Natasha, who usually found Steve’s mannerisms either intriguing or amusing. She quirked an eyebrow and took out her own lunch.

“Didn’t see you in the bar last night,” said Steve, master of the innocuous question.

“Didn’t go,” said Clint.

“Oh?”

“Had a meeting. With Phil. Principal Coulson,” said Clint, not making eye contact.

“A meeting, eh? Well, that was fast,” said Steve.

“What? No. It wasn’t like that,” said Clint. “We were just...”

“Uh-huh,” interrupted Natasha.

Clint frowned at her. “Stop it.”

She smiled, and when Clint turned back to Steve, he noticed that Steve was now grinning.

“I meant that it was fast because he only started at that school last week. Not ‘that was fast’, as in anything else.” Steve grinned some more.

“Like you putting the moves on him or anything,” added Natasha, helpfully.

Clint, sadly, could now feel a full-blown blush coming on. “We were talking about the Open Day.”

“Oh, so that’s what they’re calling it now,” said Natasha.

“Stop it, Tash,” said Clint.

“Uh-huh,” she said again, only this time with more feeling. “Oh-open day.”

“Eat your sandwich,” said Clint.

Steve finished unwrapping his lunch and looked down at it in dismay. “Oh dear,” he said.

Steve’s sandwich had been carefully cut into several pieces. It looked for all the world like the sort of puzzle that you’d find in a Christmas cracker. Arranged as they currently were, the pieces formed a rectangle. Arranged another way, Clint was sure, they’d form a triangle.

“I’m surprised Stark’s allowed near sharp implements,” said Natasha.

“I’m surprised he knows where the kitchen is,” said Clint.

Steve looked at his lunch as if it were a work of art and sighed. “I’m not sure I can eat this,” he said.

Natasha rolled her eyes.

Clint looked at both of them and stuffed the rest of his sandwich in his mouth. “I’m going back inside,” he said. “You guys are officially too weird.”

Thursday saw the return of departmental seminars, bi-weekly lectures given by staff and guest speakers that everyone was supposed to attend. These were supposed to be enlightening and informative discussions about current research, but they also had the potential to be either horrendously boring or completely irrelevant to anyone in the room. Since mandatory attendance wasn’t stated in anyone’s contract, and since no one actually got paid for attending, not everyone made it to every seminar, but enough people made it that no one questioned it. Clint sat though sixty minutes of what was supposed to be a forty minute lecture on Herodotus as cultural envoy, had two glasses of wine with the guest speaker then went home in a funk and watched more episodes of Cheers.

At nine-forty, his phone beeped as he received a text message. ‘Thor’s tomorrow? PC’ it read.

‘Definitely,’ Clint replied, and instantly started to feel better about life.

He woke with a smile on his face on Friday. His ten o’clock seminar soon put a stop to that. He should have known better, really, than to mention essays.

“What?” said Mindie, belatedly raising her hand.

“Three weeks is a long time, so you have plenty of time to do the work,” said Clint, in what was meant to be a supportive tone of voice.

“We have essays now?” said Mindie, her voice getting shriller. Around her, several students looked embarrassed. One girl Clint already suspected of being an evil mastermind settled back in her chair to watch the show.

Clint, in all honesty, hadn’t had a question quite that stupid before. “Yes, but they’re not due until the week after Reading Week, so you’ve got plenty of time to prepare.”

Clint noticed confusion in Mindie’s eyes the second the words ‘Reading Week’ were out of his mouth. Oh well. He’d already explained that twice. “Everything you need is in the course handbook,” he added, and hoped she actually had one. The boy to Mindie’s right surreptitiously slid his own course handbook out from under his notepad and gestured with his head to indicate that he was ready and willing to help, just please let him help. Clint couldn’t help notice that his copy seemed to be carefully marked with fluorescent tabs, and he would have put good money on it also being carefully annotated. Mindie frowned and crossed her arms. At the back of the class, the evil mastermind licked her finger and drew an imaginary one in the air in front of herself.

“So, as I was saying,” said Clint, getting back to the topic at hand. “Today we’ll be looking at colonization. The subject of colonization is one of the essay questions you can choose from – so please pay attention.”

At the back of the class, the evil genius settled back down to think about world domination.

He taught the same class again at eleven, which was followed by a blissfully quiet office hour. Lunch, by contrast, was manic and interrupted by half a dozen students who either hadn’t bothered to read the notice on his door about office hours, or thought such mundane restrictions didn’t apply to them. He taught sophomore classes in the afternoon: a couple of sessions on Empires, which this week meant the Greeks and more specifically Alexander the Great, and which dovetailed in nicely with Bruce’s course on Politics and Society. He sped through his admin as fast as he dared, but then had to sit through a torturous meeting on departmental expenditure. By six he was checking his reflection in his car’s rear view mirror as he headed towards Thor’s bar. Stark and Steve followed him in, and the first beer went down rather too quickly as they snarked at each other about nothing in particular. If Clint happened to check his watch a few times, what of it.

At seven, the text message came through: ‘Sorry, can’t make it. Emergency meeting. PC.’ Clint sighed, and Stark frowned at him and snatched his phone out of his hand.


	3. Open(ly Flirting) Day

Clint worked on his book for half the weekend while debating the politics of texting a guy he didn’t really know about a not-date the guy hadn’t turned up for. He might have been able to forget the whole thing for a while – who was he kidding – if Stark hadn’t seen Phil’s text and already started teasing Clint about it. The whole thing came to a head on Saturday evening, when Clint was down to his emergency beer supply and tying himself in knots with re-writes to a particularly tricky section of his book. Frustrated on several fronts and more than a little drunk, Clint’s inhibitions took the night off. He sat there with his fingers over the keypad of his phone for an inordinately long time before deciding that ‘Will be in bar on Monday if you want to join me,’ was relatively inviting and safe enough to send without sounding too needy. He pressed Send.

He was standing at the stove and wondering if it was possible to re-fry refried beans, and whether that technically made them re-refried beans or refried beans squared when his phone beeped at him and Phil’s reply came through: ‘Sounds good. Will try to make it.’ This was followed by a row of smiley faces that suggested that Phil was trying to get to grips with a new phone. Well, that was something, Clint thought. Not a complete loss, then.

On Sunday, Clint went to the archery range and thought about very little at all.

Monday was an almost exact duplicate of the previous week, the only difference being that Clint was finally able to catch up with the two PhD students who were working as GTAs on History 101 and give them pointers on how they should answer questions about the forthcoming essays, and what the marking criteria were. By six, he’d convinced himself that Phil wasn’t going to show up at Thor’s, and so he was surprised to discover that Phil was already there when Clint arrived. In fact, he looked like he’d been there for some time. He looked up bleary-eyed at Clint and smiled.

“Are you marking?” asked Clint, raising an eyebrow at the stack of paperwork.

“Hah, no,” said Phil. “You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to fill in staff evaluation forms without being interrupted by staff. But now you’re here.”

“If you need to continue...” said Clint.

“Hell no,” said Phil, putting the lid on his pen and shoving the stack of papers into his briefcase.

Clint smiled. “Lemme just get a drink. Do you want one?”

“I’m fine for now.”

By the time Clint returned with his beer, Phil was looking a little more relaxed. “I’m glad you texted,” he said.

“Well, you know,” said Clint.

“Between you and me,” said Phil, “it’s actually pretty difficult to have a social life in this job. Plus I only just moved here, so I don’t really know anyone.”

Clint thought about this. “Principals don’t socialize with their staff?”

“Hardly,” said Phil. “Well, maybe that’s a bit harsh, but you can see how it might get difficult.”

“Well, this bar is a good place to meet people,” said Clint, deflecting. “And even if the bar’s empty, there’s always Thor. Hey, if you’re feeling brave, you could even try the saloon bar where the students hang out.”

“You don’t go in there?”

“Sometimes. But I tend to avoid it for the same reasons you don’t socialize with your teachers.”

“Gotcha.”

The door opened and two parties came in one after the other. Clint shuffled his chair a little closer to the table.

“Getting busy in here tonight,” Phil said.

“Yeah. Not sure why. It happens sometimes. I think those guys are from the Business School.”

“Is there a conference on?” said Phil.

“Could be,” said Clint. “Wouldn’t know.”

“Badges,” said Phil, tapping at his own jacket pocket.

“Right.” Clint trawled back through their previous conversations for a topic. “So, you just moved here?”

“Yes. I was in Portland before.”

“And you thought it was time for a change?”

Phil shrugged. “Bad breakup.”

“Ah. Well, that’ll do it.”

“Do it?”

“Make someone move cross country.”

“Fortunately, it looks like this school’s an improvement on my last one.”

The door opened again and a young woman peeked in.

“Oh no,” said Clint. “Don’t look.”

It was pretty much guaranteed that Phil would look on hearing this.

“Who is it?”

“One of my students. Mindie Tanner.” Clint closed his eyes and sighed. “Last week she was surprised that my course included marked assignments.”

“Ah,” said Phil.

Mindie decided that she was coming in, and dragged a scared-looking young man in after her. They made their way to the bar and ordered some drinks, and Clint sighed.

“So, we’re all ready for the open day,” said Phil, changing the subject.

“Good.”

“Looks like the coach is going to be full. I’ve got about twenty for the History group.”

“That’s good,” said Clint, distractedly. He watched as Mindie claimed a small round table directly in his line of sight and positioned herself so she was staring directly at him. “It’s going to be a busy day. We’ve got a half-dozen other coaches turning up.”

Phil noticed Clint’s distraction and turned in his seat. Mindie waved at him.

“Ah,” said Phil. He paused. “Do you want to go somewhere else?”

“S’okay.”

“Don’t you find it disruptive? I mean, having the open day in term time?”

“It’s okay, actually,” said Clint. “There’s no lessons on a Thursday afternoon. I think it’s supposed to be a concession for the sports teams. So what you’re likely to find is lots of empty rooms and the staff mostly locked away in their offices.”

“I see,” said Phil, taking a thoughtful sip of his drink. “Does this mean we won’t see you on Thursday?”

Clint smiled. “I might pop my head in, but the sessions are mostly run by the PhD students. I think someone smart sold them the concept as something extra for them to put on their CVs.” This really wasn’t going quite as Clint had hoped. Every time Clint looked at Phil, he could see Mindie Tanner scowling at him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That girl.”

“S’okay.”

“Hi,” said a voice immediately behind Clint. Clint jumped, then turned round to discover Steve standing there looking a bit sheepish. “Do you mind if I join you?”

“Sure,” said Phil and Clint at the same time. They exchanged glances. Even while smiling at Phil, Clint felt a sinking feeling as the last hope that this drink would turn into a date rather than a business meeting fizzled out.

“Busy, isn’t it?” said Steve.

Clint looked around again and immediately registered a change in Mindie’s demeanour. It seemed that Steve’s arrival was not particularly welcome. He watched as she shuffled her chair round so she was hidden from view by her companion.

Steve sat down and cradled his drink between his palms.

“So what’s that about?” asked Clint, surreptitiously nodding in Mindie’s direction.

“I couldn’t say,” said Steve, which was actually Steve-speak for ‘I can’t tell you’. “So anyway, we’ve not been introduced.” Steve stuck out his hand to Phil, who shook it. “I’m Steve.”

“Phil.”

“And you’re the principal at Twin Pines? Is that right?” said Steve.

“I am,” said Phil. “And you’re with the guy with the goatee, right?”

“Tony, yeah,” said Steve, rubbing the back of his head.

“And you both work with Clint in the History department?”

“Tony does. I work at the uni part-time as a counsellor. The rest of the week, I work over at the community college.”

“As counsellor?”

“No,” said Steve. “Actually, teaching art as therapy.”

“Wow,” said Phil. “Sounds challenging. So, you’ve got his hands full.”

Yeah.”

“And then some,” added Clint.

Steve nodded in agreement. Out of the corner of his eye, Clint noticed Mindie and her friend leaving the bar.

“I don’t know what your schedule’s like,” said Phil, “but if you’re at the college on Thursday, keep an eye out for Melinda. We’re sending a party your way.”

“Will do,” said Steve. “Oh, hey. Is that Natasha’s PhD student working behind the bar?”

Clint looked over and saw Darcy poking Thor in the chest with a swizzle-stick. “Yeah, that’s Darcy,” he said. “She GTAs on my History 101 course. I think Thor’s met his match.”

“Will Tony be joining us tonight?” said Phil.

“No,” said Steve, with a note of finality.

“You’ve not had another disagreement?” said Clint.

“Not this time. He’s actually in work mode. Well, plotting.”

“Plotting?” said Phil.

“Can’t really say any more,” said Steve, which Clint assumed meant it was about the potential department closure.

And so they started chatting. Even though it wasn’t quite the sort of evening Clint had been hoping for, it was enjoyable. Clint stumbled in shortly before eleven, kicked his shoes off and went straight to bed. He wasn’t drunk – he had been driving, after all – but he did feel nicely buzzed. Relaxed enough that when he closed his eyes his mind replayed snippets of Phil’s earlier conversation: the slightly sad ‘does this mean we won’t see you?’ and hot on its heels an urgent, ‘do you want to go somewhere else?’

Before Clint knew it it was Thursday, and hey, here he was getting ready for the morning’s teaching in perhaps a slightly nicer shirt than he would normally wear. Stark raised an eyebrow when they met outside their respective classrooms, then very deliberately looked him up and down.

“Are we wearing a nicer shirt on Principal, today, Barton?” he asked in a casual tone, sliding his hands into his pockets and bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. “Or is this Principal-ly because everything else is in the wash?”

“Steve says to cancel your anniversary party. He’s organizing one of those makeover programmes to give your workshop the once-over instead,” said Clint, saying the first thing that came into his head.

“Nice,” said Tony, unmoved. “In that case they’ll have to fit in around the other TV crew, who are coming to shoot scenes for the second season of my critically-acclaimed TV programme,” he added, just a little smugly.

“Really? Congratulations,” said Clint.

Tony gave a little salute, then swung into his classroom using the doorframe for leverage.

Clint sighed.

He got back to his office shortly after twelve and checked his messages. This included one from Phil saying that they were on their way, and another from him apologising for the noise in advance.

The open day was a bit of a misnomer since it only took up the afternoon, but that was generally agreed by all parties to be as much as anyone could bear. At twelve-fifteen, Darcy ran past saying “shit, shit, shit,” by which Clint understood that the first of the coaches had arrived. Since it was Clint’s office hour, he couldn’t leave in case a student wanted to see him. He used the time wisely by having lunch and checking Facebook, instead of filling in the attendance roster like he was supposed to have been doing. At twelve forty-five, he decided that any students who turned up this late in the hour wouldn’t have time for a proper chat anyway. He was just putting his jacket on when the handle on his office door moved up and down, and a boy fell into the room.

“Most people just knock,” said Clint.

The boy got to his feet and made a show of dusting himself down and studiously avoiding eye contact.

“Can I help you at all?” said Clint.

“I thought you were out,” said the boy, running the words together.

“So you thought you’d just, what, break in?”

If Clint thought the boy had been blushing before, it was nothing to the colour of his face now. The boy still didn’t lift his head, but he did meet Clint’s gaze, looking up at him through his lashes. It was at this point that Clint put two and two together and recognised him as the young man that Mindie Tanner had dragged into Thor’s bar. The other significant point about this guy was that Clint had no idea who he was – which meant that he wasn’t one of Clint’s students, and so had no right to be here.

The boy shuffled his feet. “Um.”

Clint perched himself on the edge of his desk and decided to wait this one out.

“Can I have... can I please have... a booklet?” the boy asked, not at all sure of himself.

“Which one?” said Clint. “I teach on more than one course.”

The boy shrugged.

Clint sighed and decided to give the boy a break. He reached into his out-tray and took a yellow booklet from the stack he kept on the off-chance someone needed one. He handed it over to the boy.

“Thanks,” the boy said, rolling it up and shoving it under one arm.

“Next time, get Mindie Tanner to do her own dirty work,” said Clint, because hey, the kid was hardly likely to mention to the other staff that he’d been caught trying to break into Clint’s office.

The kid walked backwards as fast as he was able, and was out of the door before Clint had stood up. Clint left his office and locked the door. Ten seconds later he returned to check that he’d locked it properly.

By the time Clint arrived at the building where the open day was being held, the welcome session was over and Darcy was trying to encourage students to form an orderly queue so that they could be given the tour. To one side, two PhD students Clint didn’t know were preparing refreshments for later, while Sam, Stark’s PhD student sorted questionnaires. Clint spied Phil loitering at the back of the hall with some other people he assumed were staff or parents who’d agreed to help out, and raised a hand in hello. Phil raised his eyebrows, apparently in sympathy with Darcy.

Darcy, it was true, couldn’t be said to be the most conventional of dressers. The dress code for the day was smart casual, but Darcy had chosen to accessorize her forest green and black ensemble by pinning her hair up with some of the free pencils that were usually handed out at these events. Unfortunately, in keeping with the university’s current colour scheme, these were bright yellow. More importantly, they kept falling out of her hair. Clint wondered, briefly, whether she’d be able to keep her group of students in line, but then decided that they’d follow her if only to see what happened next.

“Have you all handed your questionnaires in?” she asked them.

Some of the students nodded.

“And do you all have one of these awesome free pencils?”

Again, some of the students nodded, and a few more rolled their eyes.

“Then follow me!” Darcy gestured dramatically, as if she was about to lead a group of explorers to the South Pole, then headed off. They followed her, pushing and shoving as they did so.

“You coming with?” said Phil as they passed.

“Nah,” said Clint. “Just thought I’d say hello. I wouldn’t want to cramp her style. I’ll try and pop by later.”

“Okay, see you then,” said Phil.

“Have fun,” said Clint.

“Hey, you at the back,” said Darcy, giving them both a stern look. “No stragglers. I’ll have no straggling here!”

Several students chuckled at her more than irreverent tone with their Principal.

“I’ll have words,” muttered Clint, as Phil raised a hand in farewell and followed the rest of the pack out of the room.

Clint gave them a few minutes’ head start, then followed the trail of pencils back to his building. He spent a quiet hour on a lesson plan for his Empires classes the following day, then decided that Phil’s students had probably finished their refreshments by now, and were on their way to the ‘taster session’ lessons. Would it look too obvious if he turned up to watch? Probably. Was he going to do it anyway? Um, definitely.

Pathetic.

He put his jacket back on, locked his office and headed back over to the other building. He knew that the taster sessions would all be given on the ground floor of that building, so it didn’t take long to find the correct rooms. At one open door, he found Bruce listening intently while making sure that he wasn’t seen.

“Hey,” said Clint.

“Hi.” Bruce looked a little embarrassed.

Clint peeked through the window in the door then moved back out of sight. Darcy’s class. Clint raised an eyebrow, then made his mind up. “I’m sure they won’t mind us joining them,” he said.

“No, really,” said Bruce, waving his hand dismissively. “I was just seeing how she was doing.”

Clint rolled his eyes. “Come on.” He grabbed Bruce’s sleeve, and dragged him through the door after himself, thinking that they could stand unnoticed at the back of the room. But of course, this was Darcy’s class.

Darcy scowled in their direction as they shuffled along the back wall. “Biceps, Prof-man,” she said. “See me after. I believe you know my policy on stragglers. You’re both on litter-picking duty.” With that, she cast a quick glance in Phil’s direction and got on with her class.


	4. Reading Week

If you were a student, Reading Week was a week without classes, when you were supposed to do research for your essays and start to write them. If you were a lecturer, Reading Week was when you tried to cram in all of the other jobs you’d not had a chance to do that semester, while fielding numerous enquiries from students about their essays and steeling yourself for the deluge of marking the following week.

Clint spent the whole of Monday driving to and from a research library in the next state so he could access journals his university couldn’t afford, and that weren’t available electronically, and which he’d been too disorganized to arrange copies of through inter-library loan. Amount of time driving: seven hours. Amount of time reading journals and doing actual research: ninety minutes, including the time it took to get a coffee.

He hadn’t had a chance to talk to Phil before his coach had left on Friday, and apart from a brief ‘thanks for the great session’ text from Phil and Clint’s ‘glad you liked it – will pass on your thanks’ back, they hadn’t spoken since. Clint wanted to see Phil again, hopefully this time to talk about something other than work, but by the time he made it back to his apartment on Monday night he was exhausted and didn’t really want to go out again. He was consequently both disappointed and relieved to receive a message from Phil apologising that that he wasn’t going to be at Thor’s that night because he was up to his eyes in preparations for his own school’s open day later that week.

He texted back a quick message of sympathy, adding ‘want us to lend you Darcy?’

‘She was a big hit,’ texted Phil.

‘She accepts payment in pencils. C’

‘Open day Weds. Drinks Fri? Phil.’

‘Yes :-)’ Clint pressed Send, then as an afterthought added. ‘Bar will prob be busy – essay deadlines next wk.’

‘Ok. Phil.’

Clint could have slapped himself. Even the most optimistic person would have had trouble interpreting those texts as anything like a date. And if the bar was going to be busy, which it most definitely was, the chances of it turning into a date were practically nil. Again.

Clint kicked off his shoes and lay back on his couch. The TV remote was in easy reach, and some mindless viewing seemed preferable to reading whatever emails had come his way in the last few hours.

Tuesday turned out to be a bastard day of bastard admin, with no time for research whatsoever. His emails included a summons to a meeting on campus on Wednesday – very unusual during Reading Week – where they were to discuss department ‘strategy’, apparently. He decided to make the occasion much more pleasant for everyone, and spent half the evening baking cookies to take in with him. On Wednesday he rebelled by staying in bed for an extra twenty minutes, then turned up to the meeting in what could charitably be described as extremely casual wear. No one gave his clothes a second glance, partly because they’d all had a similar idea.

Pepper opened the meeting by giving an overview of departmental finances, student intake and how their department fared compared to the other departments within the university in terms of performance and student satisfaction.

“This is great,” said Tony, “but those laurels are not for sitting on. Remember what happened to the School of Music and Fine Arts.”

“What School of Music and Fine Arts?” said Clint.

“Exactly,” said Tony, turning to face Clint and looking at him over his sunglasses. Clint absently noted that the hibiscus flowers on Tony’s Hawaiian shirt were all actually the word ‘genius’ in a curly typeface.

“There used to be a Maria Stark Foundation for Music and Fine Arts,” said Steve, patting Tony on the shoulder. “The university closed it after the last big stock market crash.”

“At which point I put someone competent in charge of our finances,” said Tony, nodding in Pepper’s direction.

“This is how I came to be Head of School for History,” said Pepper. “I used to be part of the Music School.”

Clint leaned forward in his chair and pushed the plate of cookies in Pepper’s direction.

“Anyway, the upshot is that there are no financial grounds for closing the school, and remaining open actually improves the university’s portfolio,” said Pepper.

“It’s politics,” said Stark with a shrug. “You know these guys. They put the dick into dictator. Hey, you know I’ve got another TV series, right?”

“Yes, Tony,” said Pepper. “You may have mentioned it.”

“Four or five times,” said Natasha.

“In the last hour,” said Steve.

“Well, I was just saying,” said Stark. “It can’t hurt. You don’t see that Lauffeson guy with his own TV show. He’s not on the cover of ‘What Spreadsheet?’ or anything.”

“We get it,” said Fury, who rarely said anything in these meetings. In fact, it was a mark of the seriousness of the situation that he’d turned up at all. People generally forgot he was on staff until he was actively needed for anything.

“So if this is politics, and a move towards ‘specialisation’,” said Bruce, making quotation marks in the air with his fingers, “what can we do to prevent it?”

“Well,” said Clint, pausing as the other occupants of the room turned to face him. “A friend of mine said that one way might be community involvement.”

“I’m listening,” said Pepper.

“Well, we have a lot more to do with the local community than the other university departments, right?” said Clint. “We give talks at local schools; kids generally find what we do more interesting and easy to get to grips with than Business and Economics.”

“Sure,” said Tony.

“Well, I guess what I’m getting at is that we need to make the community feel like they have a vested interest in the department. That if they lose it, they’d be losing something they actively care about.”

“Okay,” said Tony. “And how do you propose we do that?”

“By involving them in something that the department does,” said Natasha.

“Hmm,” said Steve, frowning. “Well, we might have something. Tony, just how much leeway do you have with the format of your next TV series?”

“Loads,” said Tony, but then he was hardly likely to say otherwise. He shrugged. “I suppose there might be some scope.”

“So how about we get the community involved in one of your favourite things?” said Steve.

“The community is going to help Tony make a programme about himself?” said Bruce.

Tony looked pointedly in Bruce’s direction.

“No,” said Steve. “Get the community involved with Tony’s Great Egg Race. Local schools, local clubs, whatever. And get the TV crews to film it. Like, I don’t know, a competition between the local schools and the university.”

Pepper smiled, but then almost immediately frowned. “I like it,” she said, “but it doesn’t seem fair on the schools. It’s almost like we’d be setting them up to fail.”

“Well, it doesn’t have to be like that,” said Tony. “I don’t actually help my students build their projects for the Egg Race. I could help out at one of the schools.”

“In fairness, we each could,” said Steve, casually volunteering the entire department for extra work.

“It’s an idea,” said Bruce.

“I’ll think about it,” said Pepper. “It does have the potential to improve History’s profile. But if this goes ahead, we’re going to need a lot more publicity,” said Pepper.

“Well, fortunately, that bit’s easy,” said Tony.

As the meeting drew to a close, Tony pulled Clint to one side and gave him a wink. “Tell your friend I said thanks,” he said.

Clint felt a lot happier as he headed back to his office.

“Hey, wait up,” said Bruce, catching up with him. “Need to talk to you about something.”

“It’s not work, is it?” said Clint.

“No, you’re safe,” said Bruce. “It’s about Tony and Steve’s anniversary.”

“Oh, okay,” said Clint, relaxing.

“Can we get together sometime this week and decide what we’re going to do?”

Clint shrugged. “Yeah, sure. I’m gonna be in the bar on Friday, how about then?”

“No good,” said Bruce. “So will they. This is meant to be secret, remember?”

“Oh yeah,” said Clint.

“How about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow? In the bar two days running?” said Clint, smiling. “Talk about suffering for my art. Yeah, okay. I can manage that.”

“Okay then,” said Bruce. “I’ll check with the others. Round about eight? Unless you hear otherwise?”

“Yeah, fine,” said Clint.

“Great. See you then.” Bruce nodded to himself and headed off towards his own office.

Well, thought Clint, some hope for the department and two nights out drinking this week. The week’s shaping up fine.

Since he was in the university anyway, Clint decided to spend the rest of the day working there. He took some lunch back to his office and checked his emails, sent Phil a good luck message for his school open day, then grabbed a notepad and his memory stick so he could spend some quality time in the university library. Because it was Reading Week, the place should have been packed, so naturally it was blissfully quiet. His research took him up onto the balcony storage area where the journals were kept, and he spent a happy couple of hours getting a surprising amount of work done, while at the same time spying on the half a dozen or so of his students who would in all likelihood be the ones passing with honours. When he finished, he placed the journals back on the shelf. He was sure that he hadn’t made a sound, but when he looked down, Evil Genius student was staring back up at him.

He really needed to remember what her name was.

“Hey,” said Tony, meeting Clint in the courtyard on his way out. “Got an email from one of my students. He wants to transfer out of one of my groups and into yours. What’s all that about?” Tony sounded mildly put out that anyone could prefer Clint to him.

“Search me,” said Clint.

“I forwarded it to you. Problem?”

“What, aside from my classes being full, and it being too late to transfer, and not wanting to set a precedent?”

“Yeah, that,” said Tony, shrugging Clint’s objections off.

“Well, it’s technically possible I suppose, but does this guy say why?”

Tony shrugged again, suggesting that he’d either forgotten, or hadn’t tried to find out. Clint promised himself that he’d check this out properly when he got home.

“Come on, Tony. You know the system better than I do. You know he can only transfer if he’s got a good reason. So have a word with Pepper and Steve and see if he’s said anything.”

Tony pulled a face, because the implication was that this would involve talking about feelings.

“It’ll disrupt my group if I add another student,” said Clint, grasping for another objection.

“It’s probably about a girl,” said Tony. “It usually is. Or a guy. Sometimes it’s about a guy. Or a girl and a guy.”

“That’s very binary of you,” said Clint.

Tony shrugged. “Until such times as I am told otherwise, I will assume that there are only two genders in that group.”

When Clint got home, he checked student’s name against the records held online, and something clicked. He recognised the face, but the guy hadn’t turned up for a single one of Clint’s lectures, which explained why he hadn’t recognised the name. So this was Daniel Spencer: Mindie Tanner’s sidekick, the boy who’d fallen face-first into his office apparently now wanted to transfer into the same group as Mindie. Oh, boy. Clint sent a cheery ‘no way, and here’s why’ message back to Tony. He didn’t envy Stark, who was going to have to mark the guy’s essay.

At eleven, Clint received a text message from Phil. ‘It was awful,’ Phil said.

Clint invited him to Thursday night’s party-planning session at Thor’s bar.

The next morning, Clint was awakened by his phone ringing. He flailed about, tangled in his sheets and eventually found his phone.

“’Lo,” he croaked.

“Clint?” said a strained voice. “This is Clint, right?”

Clint squinted at his phone to check the caller ID. Bruce. What on Earth could Bruce be thinking of calling at this ungodly hour of, oh. Nine-seventeen AM.

“Hey, Bruce,” said Clint, rubbing a hand across his face.

“You got company?” said Bruce, again, slightly strained.

“No, just me.” Clint pushed himself up into a seated position. “What d’you want?”

“Sorry,” said Bruce. “I didn’t wake you did I?” Bruce sounded frankly incredulous, but then Clint remembered that Bruce was the kind of guy who woke at five-thirty and did an hour’s yoga before breakfast. I mean, who did that? Woke up early specifically to get some meditation in?

“Sorry,” said Clint. “No coffee.”

“Right,” said Bruce. “About tonight.”

“Can we talk about this later? I haven’t thought of anything yet.”

“That’s not why I’m calling,” said Bruce. “I’ve got to cancel.”

“Oh, okay,” said Clint.

“I forgot. I have a thing.”

“A thing?” said Clint.

“Yeah. It’s nothing. A doctor’s appointment. It just means that I won’t be able to make it tonight. I’ve told the others.”

“Oh, okay,” said Clint. “You okay?”

“Yeah, it’s nothing really,” said Bruce. Clint could still hear the strain in his voice. “Just a check-up. Don’t worry about it.”

Whatever it was, Bruce obviously didn’t want to talk about it.

“Oh, okay,” said Clint again. “Well, look after yourself, and don’t worry about the party. We’ll think of something. And if you ever want to talk about... stuff.” Clint left his last comment deliberately ambiguous.

“Okay, thanks,” said Bruce. “I might see you Friday, otherwise, see you next week.”

“Okay,” said Clint. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

Okay, thought Clint. So there’s that. Fully awake now, he shuffled into the bathroom.

Clint stood in the shower with his head against the cold tiles and considered his options for the evening. He’d already arranged to meet Phil in Thor’s bar, so he could let that play out as it stood: meet for drinks but let Phil know that the others wouldn’t be coming. Keep the whole thing pretty casual and definitely ambiguous about whether it was a date or not. Because fair enough, they’d exchanged a few flirty glances and the conversation seemed to be heading in that direction, but he’d met some completely clueless straight guys before so it was no guarantee. Or he could call Phil up and suggest what? That they go somewhere else?

Clint squirted some shampoo into the palm of his hand and rubbed it into his hair. Head under the flow from the shower, rinse and repeat, quick and business-like before the damn hot water ran out. Great little apartment but crappy plumbing. Rub water out of eyes, turn shower off, reach for towel. Towel not on rack. Towel on floor.

Clint stepped carefully out of the shower and onto the wet floor. One time he’d done exactly this and had bent forward to pick up his towel, slipped, landed on his coccyx and then cracked his head on the sink. It’d landed him the kind of injuries that were both difficult and embarrassing to explain in A&E. He retrieved the towel. Success! He was king of the bathroom!

He towelled himself down because really, coffee. Coffee was his friend.

So, Phil was new in town. Clint would man up, call him and suggest they go out somewhere and Clint would show him the sights. But first he would drink this pot of coffee, because that was what manly men did. And he would definitely not go back to bed for a nap.

It was lunchtime by the time Clint called Phil.

“Hello,” said Phil, sounding both surprised and delighted.

“Did I call at a bad time?” said Clint.

“No, you’re okay,” said Phil. “But I’m in the cafeteria, so it might get a bit noisy.”

“Okay,” said Clint. “About tonight.”

“Thor’s at eight, right?” said Phil.

“Actually, Bruce has had to cancel. Do you want to do something else?”

Phil paused. In the background, Clint could hear people chattering and chairs scraping against the floor. “Okay. What do you have in mind?”

“You said you’d just moved here, right?”

“Yeah.”

“How about I show you the sights?”

“Like, taking me on a tour of the scenic night spots? That kind of thing?” Phil said with a smile in his voice.

Now or never, thought Clint. “Like a date,” said Clint. “Couple of bars, maybe dinner. That kind of thing.” By the time Clint had finished speaking, his heart was in his mouth.

“Shh,” said Phil, obviously talking to someone else. “Did you say...?”

“I mean, we don’t have to,” said Clint, back-tracking.

“No. I mean, yes. That sounds good. A date.”

Relief flooded through Clint, his forehead prickling with cold sweat. “What time do you finish work?”

“I can be out of here by six. Six-thirty at the latest.”

“Well, this is just a suggestion,” said Clint. “But I could pick you up from work, seeing as you don’t know the area. Then at least one of us could drink tonight.”

Phil thought about it. “That sounds okay. I can leave the car here overnight, get the bus in tomorrow. Just a minute.” The sound became muffled as if someone had just placed their hand over the microphone, but Clint very clearly heard “will you keep the noise down?” and “Melinda, no, really.”

“I’m back,” said Phil after a few seconds. “That sounds great, as long as you don’t mind me in my suit.”

“Your suit is fine,” said Clint. “Really.”

“Okay then,” said Phil.

“Well, in that case, pick you up at six-thirty?”

“Fine. See you then.”

“Okay,” said Clint.

“Look forward to it,” said Phil, and rang off.

By the time Clint put his phone down his hand was trembling slightly.

So what was it about this guy, thought Clint. He seemed like a fairly normal kind of guy when you first met him. If you discounted the laughter lines around his eyes, the disarming yet shy smile and the air of quiet confidence and oh hell. Clint was going to make a fool of himself.

Competence was Clint’s number one turn-on.

As Clint pulled into the school car park that evening, Phil emerged from the shadows. By the time Clint had brought the car to a halt and put on the handbrake, Phil was at the passenger side door. Clint opened it for him, and Phil slid in and looked cautiously over at Clint.

Clint smiled. “Hey.”

“Hey,” said Phil. He wrestled with his briefcase and wedged it between his leg and the door, then turned back to Clint. “You did say date, right?”

“Yeah,” said Clint. “I did.”

“Well, in that case,” said Phil. He slowly leaned forward and placed a hand against Clint’s cheek. Leaning in further, he kissed Clint lightly on the lips.

As he moved back out of Clint’s personal space, he looked in his eyes. “Okay?”

“Okay,” said Clint, smiling, heart beating fast. “I think I, uh, I think I’m going to get us out of this car park.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Phil, smiling back.

As Clint started the car’s engine and headed towards town, he chanced a quick look at Phil. “You know, I had this whole seduction scene planned out.”

“You did?” said Phil.

“Yeah. I was going to be really suave. Cool about the whole thing.”

“Is that right?” said Phil, raising an eyebrow. He placed a hand on Clint’s knee.

“Oh, game on,” said Clint, putting his foot down.


	5. Deadlines

“I have to go to work,” said Phil, kissing his ear.

Clint’s brain registered that he was warm and it was still dark. “No,” he said. It gradually dawned on him that this wasn’t his apartment.

“I brought you some coffee.”

“Mmmffnkyou.”

“You’re welcome.” Phil’s hand stroked the back of Clint’s head, then caressed the back of his neck. “I’ve left you a towel in the bathroom. Just close the front door when you leave. It’ll lock.”

Phil’s hand vanished and Clint was alone, but not for long.

“Help yourself to breakfast. There’s more coffee in the pot.”

The sound of Phil’s shoes against the floor, retreating. The click of the bedroom door. The muffled click of Phil’s front door.

Clint buried his face in the pillow and tried to hold on to the comforting cocoon of sleep. It was no use. Ten minutes later, give or take, he was in Phil’s shower, luxuriating in the much, much better shower that Phil had in his bathroom. Big enough for two, in fact. And were those... jets? On the sides of the shower? Oh, man. That was something to try out. But maybe another time, and maybe not alone.

Clint reached out of the shower and brought his second mug of coffee to his lips. Now, this really was luxury.

Once out of the shower and dry, he pulled on his jeans and shoved yesterday’s underwear into a pocket. He didn’t think Phil would mind if he borrowed a t-shirt, so he carefully chose one of the older shirts from the drawer: one that looked like it had seen service during an extended period of DIY. He shoved yesterday’s socks into a jacket pocket, and carried that and his shoes out to the kitchen, where he opened most of the cupboards before finding the breakfast cereal.

Over his third mug of coffee and some cereal that looked as if it had been brought with young relatives in mind, Clint started to feel more human. It was then that he realised that his presence in the kitchen had had pretty much the same effect as the tornado in the Wizard of Oz. Phil, it seemed, was pathologically neat, while Clint left coffee stains and Choc-‘o’-Wheat crumbs in his wake. He tidied up after himself and chased crumbs around the breakfast table, lifting a stack of important-looking documents to catch the last of the crumbs. Clint wondered idly whether these papers were something Phil should’ve taken into the office, so he picked up the thick manila envelope on the top of the stack to see if he could get an idea of what it was. The whole thing looked expensive, official, and very important, and the return address was a legal firm in Portland. Clint noticed that it had been posted nearly a week ago, and yet it was unopened. This didn’t match what he knew of Phil, so it made him immediately curious. But also, it was absolutely none of his business.

He carefully put the envelope back on the top of the stack, finished tidying up, and let himself out.

It was nearly ten AM by the time Clint got home, and the rest of the day was manic with emails and preparation for the following week. Half a dozen students bombarded him with questions about the essays that were due in on Monday, one of them even being cheeky enough to ask him to proof-read a draft of his work. From experience, Clint was sure that the next couple of days would be exactly the same, which is why he felt really okay about going out again tonight. If he stayed in, he’d feel obliged to answer student enquiries all night long.

Occasionally, Clint’s mind would trip him up with pleasant reminders of the night before. The first bar: where it had first been okay for them to flirt openly, with intent. The second bar: where they had started to get to know each other more intimately; and then Phil’s suggestion, eagerly taken up, that the logical thing would be for Clint to take Phil home, and Clint didn’t need any more prompting than that. Underneath the pleasant memory, though, Clint was a little concerned. In the past, his relationships had fallen into two categories, with no exceptions. One-nighters, and relationships where Clint played the long game and nothing really got started until they had gotten to know each other a whole lot better. This thing with Phil seemed to be breaking new ground.

At six he decided that he couldn’t work any longer, grabbed a quick bite to eat, then headed to Thor’s.

Somehow Clint had managed to avoid Halloween so far that year, and had very nearly forgotten about it until he opened the doors and got Halloween full in the face. Thor rarely did anything by halves, and both bars were dripping in fake cobwebs. He had so many assorted plastic cats, skeletons and pumpkins hanging from the ceiling that it was difficult to get to the bar without bashing your head on at least three of them.

Natasha sat brooding at a table, nursing a glass of clear liquid which Clint assumed was one of the few non Halloween-themed beverages on offer. She looked like she meant business.

“Let me just get a beer,” said Clint, before she had a chance to say anything. He did a double-take at the bar. Thor had apparently decided to come to work in costume tonight.

“What are you? Some kind of pirate?” said Clint.

Thor lifted his eye-patch and gazed levelly at him, then poured Clint a drink.

Clint changed the subject. “No Darcy tonight?” he asked.

“No,” said Thor. “You wish me to ask her to work all the days you’re here?”

“Good point,” said Clint. “Not really. She’d never get her PhD finished.” He took a sip from his beer so it wouldn’t spill on his way back to his table.

“She will be in on Monday,” said Thor, relenting. “She says her Halloween costume is... ‘punkalicious’. Whatever that may mean.”

“Can’t wait,” said Clint. He smiled, and went to join Natasha at her table. “What’s up, Tash?” he said.

Natasha rolled her glass between her palms and shot Clint a glance that indicated that she could handle it by herself.

Clint waved a hand to suggest that she maybe she’d like to talk about it anyway.

“I may have a problem student,” said Natasha.

“O...kay,” said Clint. “What’s the problem?”

Natasha frowned.

“Ordinarily, I’d say talk to Steve, but then you know that,” said Clint.

“I’ve got a mature student,” said Natasha. “Very serious, very intense. Some... behavioural issues, possibly. I think he may need some help.”

“Well, this is definitely Steve territory,” said Clint.

Natasha frowned at him again. “He’s a friend of Steve’s. I think Steve’s one of the reasons he’s on the programme.”

“Ah,” said Clint. “I’m going to pretend I don’t know who you’re talking about. And you should still talk to Steve. He’s professional. He should know about this.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” said Natasha. She knocked back her drink. “I’ll see if I can prise him away from Stark.” She got up and headed towards the bar.

“Make an appointment!” said Clint, a little too loudly. Natasha gestured at him to keep the noise down.

“Tact,” said Natasha when she sat back down. Her eyes drifted over to his jacket pocket, then she looked him in the eyes and smiled. “How’s your week been?” she asked, innocently.

“Not bad,” said Clint. “Got a fair bit done. You?”

Natasha shrugged. Before she had a chance to say more, Tony arrived, Steve right behind him. Tony threw his arms out wide, as if expecting the whole world to express its gratitude that he was there. Steve rolled his eyes.

“Nice, Thor,” said Tony. “Love what you’ve done with the place.”

Tony stopped in his tracks and looked Clint up and down. He raised his eyebrows and pulled a face, then carried on to the bar. Steve joined Natasha and Clint at their table.

“Ignore him,” said Steve. “He’s been like this all day.” He snagged another chair for Tony.

When Tony returned with their drinks, he handed Clint a shot of whisky. “There you go,” he said. “You look like you could do with it.”

“Say what?” said Clint.

“I mean, you look a little on the chilly side.”

“Huh?”

Tony rubbed Clint’s back in a consoling gesture. “Or are you just expecting it to get extra cold on the way home?”

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ignore him.”

Tony made a clucking sound. “Or are they for intimate use?” he continued. “For your ‘private area’? I mean, I haven’t been looking, but your package doesn’t look like it needs any extra padding.”

“Tony,” said Steve with a warning tone in his voice.

Tony reached down and seemed to fumble with Clint’s clothes.

“Hey!” said Clint.

“I was only wondering,” said Tony. “Why you have a pair of socks hanging out of your jacket pocket. Is there something you’d like to share with the class?”

“I hate you, Tony,” said Clint.

“Purple. Nice,” said Tony.

Clint downed the whisky.

As people talked around him, Clint suddenly realised that he didn’t know whether Phil was coming to the bar tonight. He guessed not, and that was okay. They were both busy people. He wondered if it would seem as if he were needy if he texted him, but did it anyway, with a brief, ‘how was your day?’

The reply was almost instantaneous. ‘All the better for having you in it, P.’

Clint knew he was grinning like an idiot, which didn’t make it any easier when the conversation around him died, and Clint looked up to find everyone staring at him.

“What?” he said, defensively.

Steve beamed at him. “Good for you,” he said.

Clint’s phone beeped again.

‘Can I see you next week? P.’

Clint’s answer to that was a most emphatic ‘yes’.

If student emails were to be believed, the world ended that weekend. Still, Monday rolled round and there they all were, lessons as usual. As predicted, class attendance was poor due to people trying to meet the five PM essay deadline. Clint returned from his four PM class to find three emails from the same girl, each more frantic than the last. She seemed to take it as a personal slight that Clint hadn’t immediately responded to her query about where she was supposed to hand her essay in to, and obviously hadn’t thought that Clint might be doing other things. It was too late to reply in any way that might help her, but not replying might seem equally offensive. Clint dashed off a quick reply mentioning his teaching hours, the course booklet that had this kind of information in it, and the hope that she’d managed to find the place, maybe by asking one of her friends.

He received no reply.

It was one of the vagaries of the university system that essays now typically sat in the admin office for two or three days waiting to be collated by the administrative staff (whatever that entailed), so Clint wasn’t actually expecting to have any marking to do until Wednesday. He should have spent the early part of the evening wisely, doing work that he wouldn’t have a chance to do later in the week. Instead, he called Phil.

“Do you want to go to the bar?” said Phil, picking up on the first ring.

“Yeah, but... I’d like to spend some time with you, too,” said Clint, cringing at his own words.

“How about I come pick you up?” said Phil. “As a thanks for you collecting me the other night.”

“Yeah, that sounds great,” said Clint. He gave Phil his address, followed by some directions of how to find the place.

“You navigate by pizza places and bars,” Phil observed, dryly.

“Problem?” said Clint.

“Not at all. See you in half an hour?”

“Okay,” said Clint.

The second Phil had rung off, Clint had a wash, changed into a fresh shirt, then made himself all sweaty again by tidying his apartment.

The doorbell rang, and Clint opened it to Phil, who was holding a bag.

“You left your shirt behind at my place,” said Phil. “I, er, washed it.”

Clint took the bag from him and peered inside. The shirt looked nearly as pristine as it had done the day Clint had bought it. Clint thought fleetingly about the shirt he’d borrowed from Phil, still stuffed in his laundry basket. Probably. He grabbed hold of Phil’s shirt and dragged him into the apartment.

Neither of them made it to Thor’s bar.

“You missed Darcy’s costume last night,” said Tony, slinking into Clint’s office at eight-thirty on Tuesday morning and collapsing into Clint’s guest chair. “It was intense.” Tony’s sunglasses obscured half his face, but even so, Clint could tell that he was deeply hung over.

“I thought the word was ‘punkalicious’?” said Clint.

“Whatever,” said Tony. “I’m thinking about stealing Darcy away from Tasha and getting her to do her PhD with me. Girl certainly knows how to rock a cantilever.” Tony’s hands made a cupping gesture against his own chest, and he made a noise that was supposed to sound like metal girders creaking. “What? I was impressed.”

Clint sighed.

“Do we need to have a chat?” said Tony. “About the birds and the bees? The Associate Professors and the Principals? As a senior member of staff here at the ol’ U of M, I feel duty bound to mentor you. No matter how personally distasteful I find your appalling taste in men.”

“Get out of here,” said Clint.

“It’s true not everyone can have someone as perfect as Steve,” said Tony, examining his fingernails. “But I can extrapolate. Blah blah blah empirical evidence yadda yadda. And so forth.”

“Are you even listening to yourself at this point?” said Clint.

“Can’t a guy make a social call?”

“What do you want?”

Tony looked around conspiratorially, as if he were expecting to find half a dozen other people hiding out in Clint’s office. Finally, he dropped his persona.

“Look, it’s about this damn party. I know Bruce will have his thinking cap on trying to organize something, but the thing is – Steve just wants something simple. And, you know...” Tony cringed. “I just want Steve to be happy. So no big stuff.”

“Do you have anything in mind?”

“Look, how about I take him out somewhere, and you guys set something up at our place? There’s some sculpture thing Steve’s been busting my nuts about.”

“Oh, okay.” Secretly, Clint thought Tony would be just as interested in the ‘sculpture thing’ as Steve, but he let that pass.

“I’ll give you a key. Just, er, don’t tell Bruce this was my idea, right?”

“Why?”

Tony shrugged, which Clint guessed meant that it was complicated. He sighed.

“Right, I’m off,” said Tony. “I’m far too important to be hanging around giving sage advice to junior members of staff all day.” He levered himself up and out of his chair and headed for the door.

“Later,” said Clint.

That was the last chance Clint had to sit down and relax until nearly two PM. He gave his History lectures then had a couple of hours teaching before his office hour, which was busy with students casually dropping by to ask for their essay grades. At one forty-five, he made a sign for his door, in large, bold capital letters, stating that essay results would not be available until the tenth of November. At five minutes to two, a student knocked on his door and asked for his grade.

He spent the afternoon writing an abstract for a paper he hoped to give at a conference, then brought three bottles of wine on his way home in preparation for the marking.


	6. The Peer Review

“You have nice eyes,” said Phil.

“You too.” Clint cringed at himself. When it came to giving complements, he was tongue-tied.

Phil stroked his back, tracing his hand down from Clint’s shoulder to his waist, then pulling him in possessively for another kiss. Clint opened his mouth for him, tilting his head to allow him better access.

Phil pulled back gradually. “I’m glad you came over last night.”

Clint smiled at him. “You saved my sanity.”

“Happy to oblige.”

Phil cupped Clint’s face and Clint responded by pulling their bodies back into close contact.

“What time’s your first class?” said Phil.

“Nine. So I’m going to have to go soon. What about you?” Clint carded his fingers into Phil’s hair; tousled it.

“Meeting at nine. Guh. Go on. You go get your shower first. I’ll put the coffee on.”

“Okay,” said Clint, not moving.

“I’m getting up now,” said Phil.

“I can see that.”

“No, really.”

“Uh-huh.”

Phil slid backwards out of the bed and Clint watched him fumble around looking for something to wear while padding around the house. When Phil was finally out of the room, Clint felt that there was very little alternative but to get up.

Once showered, he dressed in the change of clothes he’d had the foresight to bring with him and Phil slipped past him into the bathroom. Clint removed himself from temptation and headed to the kitchen.

It was nice, this. A very easy, comfortable routine that they seemed to have slipped into with very little effort. It felt like... like being a grown-up. Being in a proper relationship. Clint shook himself. All this grown up stuff was a bit of a shocker.

Phil had put the box of cereal on the table for him, and Clint retrieved what was becoming his usual mug and a bowl from the cupboard. As Clint dug into a bowl of chocolate cereal, he examined a large envelope sitting on the table and noticed that it was the same official envelope he’d seen the previous week; still unopened.

Phil walked into the kitchen with a tie draped around his neck. He placed the tie on the table and poured himself some coffee. Phil didn’t put his tie on until after he’d had breakfast, so he wouldn’t spill anything on it. Clint thought it was kind of quaint and cute, dammit.

Phil noticed Clint’s hand resting on the envelope.

“Oh yeah, I’d been meaning to do something about that,” said Phil, and shrugged. He reached over and snagged the envelope and put it in his briefcase.

It wasn’t much later that Clint was on his way to work, pausing only for a quick kiss by Phil’s front door and the promise of meeting up later in Thor’s bar.

The school was still quiet when he arrived, but Bruce’s car was there, and so was Tony’s. As Clint walked down the corridor to his office swinging his bag from his hand, Tony and Steve’s voices drifted out of Steve’s office, and Clint was caught off-guard by how casually content and sure of their relationship they sounded when they thought no one else could hear them.

He unlocked his office and started up his computer. Someone had placed a plastic carrier bag in the top of his in-tray, and when he opened it, he found a plastic hoop that could be fastened onto a trash can, and a pack of three juggling balls. Thanks, Natasha.

His emails were not such a pleasant surprise. They included an invitation to Pepper’s office for a chat later that day, and although Clint knew that he had no reason to worry, it still made him feel like a schoolboy caught out after having done something wrong. He was teaching all day, so the first chance he had to speak to Pepper was four PM, when staff with children were already starting to leave work.

He knocked on her door.

“Come in,” said Pepper. As he poked his head around the door, she smiled at him. “Clint, please, come in. Take a seat. Can I get you some water?”

“No, I’m fine thanks.” Clint sat on the chair facing Pepper’s desk, crossed his legs, then uncrossed them.

“You don’t need to look so worried,” said Pepper.

“Oh, right.”

“Seriously,” said Pepper. “I just want to talk about the peer review.”

“Oh, right,” said Clint again.

“It’s review time again, I’m afraid. I thought this year I’d make the process a bit more personal and have a chat with you rather than put it in an email.”

“Okay,” said Clint, crossing his arms.

“Since you’ve been on staff properly for two years now, I think we can involve you in the review process for the more senior staff. I know that may seem a little... odd, but quite frankly, we’re a small department, and I’m not sure who else I can get to do it. I’d like you to peer review Stark.”

“Say what?”

Pepper waved her hand around. “It’s the same process as last year: you sit in on another teacher’s class, write a short report about their teaching methods, whether you think they meet the required standards, and add a few lines about how you think their teaching methods can be improved.”

“For Stark,” said Clint, unable to get past that point.

“Yes,” said Pepper.

“Does he know about this?”

“Not yet. I thought I’d talk to you first.” Pepper paused and looked at him levelly. “Look, if you’ve got a problem doing this, I’ll see if I can get someone else. Bruce did it last year and Fury and Natasha the years before that, so...”

“Okay,” said Clint.

“Do you want me to tell him?”

“No, I’ll do it,” said Clint with an evil gleam in his eye.

Pepper smiled at him. “If you’re sure.”

“Yeah, it’s fine. Do you want to talk about anything else?” said Clint.

“No, that’s it, really. Just organise a time between yourselves as to which of his classes you’ll be sitting in on. You know the process well enough by now.”

“Okay then.” Clint slapped his legs and stood up. “Out of interest, who’ll be reviewing my classes?”

Pepper looked sheepish. “Fury. I know he looks intimidating, but frankly, he’s a pussycat. You don’t have anything to worry about. Oh, and one last thing,” she added as he opened her office door, “don’t forget to RSVP to the invitation to the department Christmas party.”

“Right,” said Clint.

He scurried back to his office, marked another five essays (awful, mediocre, good, good, awful, I mean honestly, if you can’t spell your lecturer’s name what chance do you have), then headed for Thor’s bar.

Phil was sitting on a bar stool, scowling at his phone when Clint arrived. When he noticed Clint, his face lit up and he smiled, and Clint knew that his own expression had become extremely goofy. As Clint approached, Phil reached out and touched his hand.

Behind the bar, Darcy coughed. When Clint looked in her direction, she raised an eyebrow.

“No touching, Suit,” she said to Phil. “Beer, Biceps?” she added to Clint, by way of a greeting.

“Yes please,” said Clint, pointing to the beer he usually drank. “No Thor tonight?”

“Nah,” said Darcy. “Furball’s at the brewery.”

“Furball?” said Clint, his voice becoming a squeak. Phil’s expression looked equally incredulous.

“Yah,” said Darcy, handing Clint his beer and taking his money. “Guy’s like a big cat. Rwarr.”

“If you say so,” said Phil.

“Guys should be properly hairy, though, don’t you think?” Darcy said nonchalantly, apparently unafraid to sail this conversation out into treacherous waters.

Clint shrugged, non-comittally.

“Speaking of,” said Darcy, as Bruce walked up to the bar. “What can I get you, Prof-man?”

“Hey, fellas. Darcy,” said Bruce.

Clint coughed into his fist and Phil looked away with a smile.

“Did I miss something?” said Bruce.

“Nah, you’re okay,” said Darcy. “Beer, right?”

“Please.”

Clint suddenly remembered something he’d missed earlier in the conversation.

“Why’s Thor at the brewery?” he asked.

Natasha leaned forward on the bar and tapped one perfectly-manicured fingernail against the picture on the pump. It showed a stylised image of a man in profile; some kind of Norse warrior with his hair flowing out behind him. “Because he owns it,” she said. “What, you think he played hockey for ten years and all he could get at the end of it was a lousy bartending job? He works bar because he’s too sociable to sit behind a desk all day; has staff that run the business.”

“Did you know about this?” Clint asked Bruce.

“I thought everyone did,” said Bruce.

“Actually, Darcy, can we have a quick word?” said Natasha. “It’ll only take a minute. It’s about chapter four.”

Darcy looked alarmed for a second, and then rallied. “Sure.”

“Nothing to worry about,” Natasha assured her. “There’s just this new publication.”

“Oh, right,” said Darcy. “Okay, shoo, you lot.” She waved a hand in their direction.

“Okay,” said Clint. He grabbed his beer and headed towards a table and two particularly comfy chairs. Phil followed him.

“Does she have nicknames for everyone?”

“Except ‘Tasha,” said Clint.

Phil nodded. “What does she call Fury?”

“Eyeball,” said Clint. “But don’t mention that if you ever talk to him. I’m not sure they’ve ever actually spoken.”

As Phil sat down, he leaned towards Clint and kissed him on the cheek.

“That’s okay, right? In here?”

“When it’s quiet like this, fine,” said Clint. “The rest of the time, though....”

“Okay. I’m not about to do anything stupid. Anyway, I’m glad you could make it tonight.”

“Hey, me too. But it won’t be a late one. Sorry. The more marking I can get done tonight, the less I have to do at the weekend.”

“Understood,” said Phil. His phone beeped, and he ignored it. “Do you want to, er, do something this weekend?”

“I’d like to. But I have to get as much of that marking done as possible.”

“I know. How about Sunday?”

Clint wanted to, boy how he wanted to. But he hadn’t been to the archery range for a while, either, and that was calling to him. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe dinner, Sunday evening?”

“Great,” said Phil, looking relieved.

And dinner Sunday evening would naturally flow into spending the night, which was a Very Good Thing.

Phil’s phone beeped again, and he pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the screen. Clint raised an eyebrow, and Phil very deliberately turned the phone off and put it back in his pocket.

“Hello, lovebirds,” said Tony, who’d somehow managed to arrive unnoticed with Steve. Clint waited until they were both seated with their drinks and Tony was taking his first sip before he leant across and announced, “I’m doing your peer review.” All credit to Tony, he hardly spilt a drop.

“And so the student becomes the master,” said Tony, wiping his mouth.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Clint.

“Explain?” said Phil.

“Tony was Clint’s PhD supervisor,” said Steve.

Phil’s eyes opened wide.

“And that is something I will never again discuss while Tony is in the room,” said Clint.

“He was so sweet, so innocent when he started out,” said Tony. “And we took him and made him a man.”

Steve rolled his eyes and Phil suppressed a cough.

“You made me doubt my sanity on a daily basis,” said Clint.

“Imagine how I feel,” said Steve.

“What was your PhD on?” said Phil. “I’ve been meaning to ask, just couldn’t find the right time.”

“Ah, the recurve bow,” said Clint.

“The Recurve Bow in Mongol Warfare,” said Steve. “I remember it well.”

Clint shot Steve a grateful glance, imagining what Tony must have been like while he was reviewing Clint’s work. “And I’m happy to talk about it, really, but maybe not now, and maybe when I’ve had a few more drinks,” he added.

“Go with that,” said Steve. “I’ve noticed that people often find it difficult to stop talking about their research once you give them permission to discuss it.” He looked in Tony’s direction.

“Well, later then,” said Phil, raising his glass as if to make a toast.

Very soon there were six of them around the table, Natasha balancing on the arm of Clint’s chair, all of them letting off steam and relieving the stress of another week. Clint even found time to draw Bruce to one side and mention what Tony had told him about the anniversary party, because truly, that was what Stark was expecting him to do.

The following week was crazy. Clint had a full working week, and on top of normal teaching, admin and outreach work, he had to mark another fifty essays, help plan a party, peer-review one of Stark’s classes, and write a tactful and useful report on it. Oh, and he actually seemed to be in some kind of relationship now, so there was that. The work on his book didn’t stand a chance. As promised by Pepper, Fury slipped unobtrusively into one of Clint’s Monday classes and sat at the back, wreathed in shadow. Clint never saw him leave, but by Tuesday evening he had feedback on his seminars that he actually found useful. Clint’s review of Tony’s seminar was nowhere near as professional.

“Clint Barton,” announced Tony as Clint entered Tony’s classroom, a little hung-over from the wine he’d drunk as part of his essay-marking reward system. “Give the man a round of applause, ladies and gentlemen.”

Bless their hearts, they actually did as Tony asked.

Clint vaguely recognised some of Tony’s sophomores from Clint’s History 101 course the previous year. The rest were complete mysteries to him. He shuffled past the pack to one of the only spare chairs in the room, which was of course on the opposite side of the room from the door. He spent most of the rest of the class trying to make himself unobtrusive, which was harder than it looked.

Tony reached under the desk and brought out a plastic crate full of short lengths of wood, followed by a large deep tray full of sand. Clint realised that he’d stumbled into one of Tony’s classes on building technology: specifically, the lesson that explored what cultures could build given only some wood and their bare hands. He was thoroughly entertained along with the rest of the class as Tony deftly constructed a series of towers and arches, all using the same pieces of wood, and all while talking non-stop about what he was doing. There was a rapid-fire Q&A session – of course there was – and in the last fifteen minutes of the class, his students all had a chance to get their hands on the building materials, which of course sparked a whole additional set of questions. No wonder Tony’s classes overran. As they were finishing up, Clint slipped out of the room and dashed back to his office to make some notes, and a little later he saw Tony riding the trolley bearing his construction materials down the hallway. He sighed and carried on with his report.

It was late when he left his office, a little punch-drunk and his depth perception shot to hell from staring at writing close up for too many hours. The sound of whale song drifting out of Bruce’s office told him that he was not the last person here. Out of habit, Bruce left his door slightly open, so Clint knocked on the door frame and walked in.

“Hey,” said Bruce, looking up at him. “Let me just turn this off.” He clicked his mouse and the noise stopped.

Bruce’s office looked like a place old manuscripts went to die. The desk was snowed under with paperwork, not an inch of it free. At some point, Bruce had apparently given up hope on ever getting it clear, and had decided to stand a potted cactus on top of some of it.

As a professor, Bruce was loved deeply and freely by his students, and consequently his office also contained a colony of small gifts that his students had brought him over the years. Presumably it had started off as a joke somewhere in the dim and distant past, the reason long lost, but a trend had developed until now there was no escaping the fact that Bruce’s office was also full of penguins.

“Can I?” said Clint, pointing at a guest chair.

“Sure,” said Bruce. “Let me just....” Bruce scribbled in the margin of the essay he was marking, then stuck his pencil behind his ear. “What can I do for you?”

“Oh, nothing, really,” said Clint. “I was just on my way out, noticed you were still here.” Clint bit his bottom lip, now thinking that perhaps he shouldn’t have disturbed Bruce.

“Actually, I’m glad you dropped by. Under that penguin there.” Bruce pointed at a painted wooden penguin on the window sill. “Party paperwork.”

“Ah, I forgot again,” said Clint.

“Yeah, I know,” said Bruce. “This whole thing is just too much right now. Fortunately, I’ve spoken to both of them about it, and neither of them actually want us to make a big deal of it. They just feel obliged to mark the occasion in some way. I mean, ten years. Anyway, under Edgar, there’s some paperwork from the caterer.”

“Edgar?”

“The penguin.”

Clint moved the ornament and riffled through the papers.

“Tony’s paying for everything, so I didn’t think anyone would mind if I went ahead and booked it.”

Clint nodded in agreement. “You’re right.”

“It’s all pretty straightforward, apart from the cake,” said Bruce. “I’ve said there’ll be about twenty-five of us in total. I assume you’ll be bringing Phil?”

Would he? Thought Clint. “I guess so, I hadn’t really thought about it,” Clint admitted. That was what couples did, wasn’t it? Went to parties together and shit like that. “I’ll ask him.”

The thought was still running through his head as he drove home and carried on with his marking.


	7. Marks, Results, Surprises

It was still pitch-dark when Clint left Phil’s house on Monday morning, all kinds of exhausted and already eager for the week to be over. He rubbed at a sore spot on his neck as he drove into school, a box full of marked essays on the seat beside him.

Sunday night they’d fallen on each other, kissing desperately as if it’d been months since they last saw each other, and Phil’s bed, shower, and kitchen table all now bore the marks of being thoroughly well-used. Phil was a goddamn god in the kitchen.

Clint narrowly missed running a red light and the turning for the school just thinking about it.

In his office, he sipped joylessly at a sub-standard cup of instant coffee while completing the admin for his essays. All of the essays were blind-marked, and so he didn’t find out who’d got what marks until he filled in the spreadsheet and matched student numbers to names. He was so surprised with a couple of the results that he thought he must have made a mistake, and went back and re-checked.

Clint had honestly forgotten about his problem students over the last week or so; something he was not proud of. Admittedly, he hadn’t seen them in class either, but that was no excuse. Mindie Tanner, the girl who’d surprised him in the first week of classes by not knowing about the essays turned out to have yet another surprise in store for him. She’d achieved such a high mark that her essay was squarely in the category that earned her a distinction. Kate, the evil genius, one of the only students in the library during Reading Week and about the last person he thought would have any difficulties, hadn’t submitted an essay at all.

Clint divided the essays up into batches so he could hand them back to students in class. Then, naturally, it was time for his normal week of teaching to start.

As he headed off to the classrooms, Pepper chased after him. “I’ve got a late essay submission for you,” she said, waving it at him. “If you wouldn’t mind? It’s all above board. We’ve checked the reason for missing the deadline.”

Clint took it and put it in his bag. There was no way to mark this essay without knowing who’d submitted it.

There were two ways to handle the handing back of essays. Either you could give them back at the start of class, in which case the students would spend all lesson sneaking looks at each other’s marks and sulking about their results, or you could hand them back at the end of class, in which case students might spend the whole class being distracted by the prospect of their results. Clint favoured the second method, if only because it meant he didn’t spend so long getting glared at. He taught the same class to three different groups one after the other, and handed Mindie’s essay back to her with a smile. As she took it from him her eyes opened wide and her face froze. She quickly hid the essay in her folder, and Clint turned his gaze to his next student; Kate, sat staring directly ahead. “Friday, okay?” he whispered to her as he went past.

As Mindie left the classroom, she gave Clint the smallest of waves.

The afternoon was spent preparing for one of his classes on sexuality and gender (never the most straightforward to teach), and slavery (ditto), plus one more hour’s teaching. Then he was off to the bar, where Phil and potentially others from his department would be joining him. The first thing he noticed on his arrival, however, was the saloon bar overflowing with students either celebrating or commiserating their essay results. The lounge bar was also busy with more people from the Business School, which Clint took as a personal slight because deep down all members of the History department considered Thor’s bar their personal private property.

He treated himself to a new ale Thor was trying out – from his own brewery, Clint guessed, then squeezed himself into a chair in a corner of the bar he didn’t usually frequent. Tony and Steve arrived shortly after, Tony looking about as weary as Clint felt, but smiling.

“Cheers, pal,” said Tony, raising a glass to him.

“For?”

“Your peer review report.”

“He’s laminated it,” said Steve. “It’s on the fridge.”

“I’m peerless,” said Tony, preening.

Truth be told, Clint had found it difficult to suggest any way that Tony could improve his teaching, and had said so. He’d never hear the end of it.

Phil arrived as Steve was telling them about a gallery trip he was taking with his mature students from Community College the following week, and they spent a happy half-hour talking about nothing in particular until Clint was distracted by a woman entering the bar. He watched as she fought her way through the crowds, holding tight to the handle of a baby carrier obviously designed for use in a car. The baby itself was tiny, and bundled up so completely that only a tuft of black hair was clearly visible. She was obviously looking for someone. Eventually, she looked in their direction and frowned. That was curious, Clint thought. He put his hand on Phil’s and leaned in close to hear something Phil was saying, and the next time he looked up, the woman was standing next to them.

“Phil?” she said, loud enough for the people on the next table to notice.

Phil jumped about a foot in the air and span round, knocking Clint’s hand away as he did so.

“That May woman said I’d find you in here,” the woman said.

“Audrey! Hi!” said Phil. “You gave me a shock. Oh! Is that him?”

“Yes, Phil,” said Audrey. “This is him.”

“What are you doing here?” said Phil.

“Can I put this down somewhere?” said Audrey, waving the baby carrier.

Clint pushed his chair back at the same time as Steve remembered his manners and put his hands out to take the carrier from her. The upshot of this was that Steve poked Clint in the ear, but everyone was so confused by what is going on that no one took any notice. Clint stood back, out of the way.

“Pass it over,” said Steve. “I’ll put the little fella down here out of the way.” He indicated a stool that was wide enough to safely rest the carrier on, and high enough that the baby would be able to see his mom across the table. Audrey gave Steve an appraising look, and passed him her baby.

“I’m surprised to see you,” said Phil, dragging over another stool over for Audrey to sit on. “What on Earth are you doing here?”

Audrey sighed. “Phil, you won’t answer your mail. You won’t even pick up the phone. What did you expect me to do?” She sat down and slapped her thighs in exasperation.

“I’ve been meaning to,” said Phil.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Phil. That letter was posted nearly a month ago. What was I supposed to do?” said Audrey.

“A month?” said Phil, incredulously. “No, that can’t be right. It can’t be that much more than...” Phil thought about it, then sagged a little. “Three weeks.”

Audrey stared at Phil, and he dropped eye contact. She folded her arms across her chest.

“What was I supposed to do?” repeated Audrey.

“I’m sorry,” said Phil. “I’ll do it tonight. I. Er. I’ve got it with me.”

“How about you do it now?” said Audrey. “Then I can take it home.”

Their table descended into silence as Phil and Audrey stared at one another. Steve looked at the baby.

“Let’s go to my car,” said Phil.

Clint finally found his tongue. “Er, what’s going on?” he said.

“It’s nothing,” said Phil.

Audrey looked at Phil with incredulity. “Excuse me?” she said. “Need I remind you,” she prodded Phil in the chest with a finger, “that until you sign that paperwork, I am still legally your wife.”

As Clint’s world started to disintegrate around him, he became vaguely aware that the tables around them were also falling silent.

“Let’s take this outside,” said Phil, reaching for his briefcase and standing up. He strode out without a backwards glance, and Audrey reached over the table to grab the handle of the baby carriage. She followed Phil out.

Gradually people near them started to talk again. Steve looked up at Clint. “Why don’t you sit down?” he asked.

“No,” said Clint. “I think I’m just gonna....” He turned and walked out of the bar, leaving Tony and Steve staring after him.

So that was it, Clint thought, driving home as fast as he dared. His grand romance had lasted, what? Less than a month? He thought he and Phil had something special, but it appeared that Phil didn’t see it that way, because he’d forgotten to mention something pretty damn important. Phil’s ‘bad breakup’ was apparently not that broken up, so what was Clint? A fling? And the baby? Christ! The baby didn’t look more than a few months old, which meant that Phil had probably walked out on her while she was pregnant.

He pulled up outside his apartment, parking diagonally across two parking spaces. He jerked on the handbrake as if it had personally done something to offend him and stormed up the stairs and through his front door. The voice of reason piped up at the back of his brain. There was a high probability, the voice said, that the child was not Phil’s, and that was why the marriage had dissolved. Screw reason, Clint thought. He really didn’t want to listen to reason right now. If the kid wasn’t Phil’s, why didn’t he just sign the paperwork and get it over and done with? Because he was in denial? Because he wanted her to suffer? Neither of those reasons sounded great.

Why hadn’t he fucking well told Clint? That hurt more than the rest of it.

Clint’s phone rang, the caller ID showing Phil’s name. He stuffed the phone into the refrigerator and took out the bottle of good vodka that Natasha had bought him for Christmas, and that only she drank. Retreating to his lounge, he couldn’t hear the phone any more. He collapsed onto the couch and untwisted the cap on the bottle. Natasha would just have to buy herself some more.

An indeterminate amount of time later, Clint was face down on the couch with his head under one of the cushions when his landline rang. And rang, and rang. He was tempted to let it keep on ringing, but it was late, and he knew it could be heard downstairs. And anyway, he knew that Phil didn’t have that number.

“What the ever-living fuck?” said Tony Stark.

Tony, thought Clint. Yeah, sure. As Clint’s erstwhile PhD supervisor, it figured that Tony would have Clint’s home number in case of emergencies.

“We’ve been worried, Clint,” said Tony. “What the actual fuck? Why weren’t you picking up your phone?”

“It’s in the fridge,” said Clint, because that made sense.

“Hand it over,” said Steve, in the background.

“No,” said Tony.

“Tony I swear,” said Steve. “Hand me the phone.” There was the sound of a scuffle and Steve’s voice came on the line. “Clint, its Steve,” said Steve, completely unnecessarily.

“Go away, Steve,” said Clint.

“See?” said Tony. “What did I tell you?”

“It’s not Phil’s baby, Clint,” said Steve. “He’s been trying to talk to you.”

“Whatever,” said Clint, and hung up the phone. Phil hadn’t got round to mentioning this anytime in the last few weeks, so the explanation could damn well wait until morning. He unplugged the phone and crawled into bed.

He wore shades to work the following morning and taught in a daze. His afternoon was supposed to have been spent on outreach work and lesson planning, but by two he’d had enough so he drove home, got his bow, and spent three hours at the archery range. He returned home bruised, sore and still angry, and went to grab a beer out of the refrigerator but found his phone instead. It did not appear to be working.

“Aw, phone, no,” he said, picking it up and shaking it. Not surprisingly, this made no difference whatsoever. He left the phone on the counter and went out to buy some pizza, hoping that maybe his phone would start working once it had defrosted a little and had been recharged.

Phil was standing outside on the sidewalk.

“Clint,” said Phil, trailing after him when he refused to slow down. “It’s not what you think. Please, Clint.”

As Phil followed him, Clint finally started to see sense and stopped walking.

“I honestly did mean to do that paperwork. You know how mad things have been. It’s not my baby,” said Phil.

Clint still didn’t turn to face him. Phil stepped closer.

“We’d been talking about starting a family, I mean, way back. But by the time we could afford to support a child, well. The marriage had broken down years before. It just took us a while to realise it. She just... couldn’t wait for the divorce. Went ahead and had the child without me. That’s all.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Clint saw Phil raise his hand as if to place it on Clint’s shoulder, then lower it again as if he’d thought better of it.

“I should have told you. I know that. I just didn’t think.”

Clint turned to face him.

“I’m sorry,” said Phil. “I’m really sorry.”

Clint didn’t know what to say, except, “I just wish you’d’ve been honest. I’m going to need a little time to think this through.”

“Okay,” said Phil. “Take as long as you need.”

Clint wasn’t sure how he made it through the rest of the week. On Wednesday morning, miraculously, his phone started working again. Amongst twenty or so messages from Phil, there was one that read simply, ‘Paperwork signed. Divorce should be finalized in eight weeks.’

On Thursday, he received an email from Bruce with the heading ‘about the party’, which he somehow forgot to read. Friday was the actual day of Tony and Steve’s anniversary party, and fuck. He was supposed to be taking Phil along as his guest. At four o’clock, Clint was idly wondering just how much shit he’d be in if he didn’t turn up when Tony burst into his office and waved a finger at him.

“That’s it, enough,” said Tony.

“Whah?” said Clint.

“With the shades and the ‘pity me’ attitude. So he made a mistake, so what? Get over it. Who doesn’t?”

Privately, Clint could concede that Tony had a point, but since it was Tony, Clint wasn’t giving up that easily. “It’s none of your business,” he said.

“Right, fine,” said Tony, approaching the desk and leaning over it. “You want to behave like I did for most of the nineties, be my guest. But if I walk out of here and tell Steve that you’re not going to try to fix this, and if your attitude ruins his evening... you and I will have some serious words.”

Tony turned on his heel and strode out.

Clint saw sense remarkably quickly after that.

He opened the email from Bruce and saw that it had been cc’d to all of the History staff, a few of Steve and Tony’s friends, and Phil. It contained directions to the house for those who’d never been there before, a couple of lines about what time to turn up, and a note saying that Bruce would meet everyone there, since he had a key and was organising the caterers.

Clint made a mental note to buy Bruce a thank-you penguin.

Taking the coward’s way out, Clint texted Phil with a brief, ‘see you at the party?,’ finished his work, and headed home.

It was a long time since Clint had last been to the mansion. To say that Tony’s place was on the posh side of town would have been to do it a disservice. The Starks were one of the first families to settle the area, and so it was more accurate to say that the posh part of town had grown up around the Stark household. Several years ago, when Clint had visited for the first time, he’d honestly believed that Tony lived in part of an up-market redevelopment of an old building; perhaps a school, perhaps a hospital. Tony had let Clint keep on believing that right up until they arrived at Tony’s workshop. Tony’s workshop, an interconnected series of out-buildings, stables and garages, was easily as big as Clint’s apartment block.

Clint’s tyres span on the gravel as he drove up the curve of the driveway to the parking area. Several cars were here already, and lights from inside the house revealed Bruce and Fury surreptitiously sampling from the buffet table while talking to a couple of people that Clint didn’t recognise.

Clint grabbed his gift – a hastily-bought bottle of tequila that Tony would appreciate – from the passenger seat, and headed in. Bruce shook his hand as he entered, and tactfully didn’t ask him any questions.

“They don’t expect us to hide in the dark and shout surprise, do they?” Clint asked.

“I hope not,” said Bruce. “Half the guests aren’t due to turn up until after they get back, anyway.”

“Good point,” said Clint. He looked around.

“Has it changed much since you saw it last?” said Bruce.

“Dunno,” said Clint, eyeing the expanse of wood and stone and unobtrusive technology. “When he was supervising my PhD we rarely made it out of the workshop.”

Clint took the opportunity to wander around and examine the food on offer. In the middle of a long table, the cake was a work of art. As befitting a man who was perfectly at home with his ego – and the man who balanced him out – one a historian, the other an artist, the cake was a perfectly-rendered copy of the iconic scene from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, but with Tony’s and Steve’s faces replacing those of the original figures. It was about the campest thing that Clint had ever seen.

Clint gave Bruce a knowing glance. “Really?”

Bruce gazed nonchalantly towards the ceiling, and they both headed to the bar.

“Sorry I was an ass,” said Clint, taking a beer. “I know I said I’d help out.”

“It’s fine,” said Bruce. “Tony’s actually used these caterers before. It was all straightforward and... ah.”

Clint turned to see what Bruce was looking at, and watched Phil enter the room and hand a gift to one of the waiters.

“I think I should leave you to it,” said Bruce, making himself scarce.

There was no point in either Phil or Clint pretending that they hadn’t seen each other. Phil didn’t bother with anyone or anything else in the room and walked straight up to Clint. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Me too,” said Clint. “I, er, over-reacted.”

Phil gave Clint a little close-lipped smile. “I know I should have said something,” he said. “But for what it’s worth, I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you everything.”

“I know,” said Clint. “And I know I don’t have any claim over you. I mean, we’d only been dating three weeks. It’s not like we were... er.” Clint looked down, then back at Phil. Phil’s sad smile, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes.

“Can we start again?” said Phil, putting his hand out to take Clint’s glass from him.

Clint let him take it.

“Yeah, sure,” said Clint. “That’d be...”

Phil’s other hand slipped around Clint’s waist and drew him in for a kiss.

Phil smelt of deep, musky cologne and tasted of peppermint. Clint’s hands found the lapels of Phil’s suit jacket at the same time as Phil’s tongue slipped into Clint’s mouth. Clint fell into the kiss, running his tongue along Phil’s teeth.

From the other side of the room, there was applause. “I thought the floor show was later?” said Tony, striding over to them and winking. Clint belatedly realised that the applause was at Steve and Tony’s arrival, and not for them.

Tony patted them both on the butt and headed for the bar.


	8. Dr Buns’ Busy Day

The world had gone mad. That was the only possible explanation. If Clint had thought his schedule had been insane before, now that he was actively, determinedly, and passionately involved in this relationship, it seemed like he never had a chance to come up for air. He was loving it, but the lack of sleep was also driving him a little bit crazy.

Sure, they’d had to talk a lot through, and for the most part, they’d even done that like mature, rational adults. Two weeks on, the main differences appeared to be that Clint now had a few items of clothing and a toothbrush permanently stored at Phil’s place, and he was never sure whose bedroom he was waking up in until he smelt the coffee. Phil bought insanely good and expensive coffee.

Today was due to be a day of extra-special crazy. Clint had six hours of teaching and an office hour, plus a staff meeting at the end of the day, and Stark was bringing a couple of people from his television production company onto campus with a view to filming scenes from his current series there, and with an eye on potentially bringing them in for the ‘Great Egg Race Special’ the following year. Tony’s filming schedule was another one of those things that Clint forgot about until someone mentioned it. Apparently, this was just another one of those things that Tony kept ticking along in the background.

Clint took a detour into town on his way to work to pick up some lunch, since he wasn’t going to get a chance to go to the cafeteria later. There weren’t all that many places prepared to make him lunch to go at seven-thirty AM, so he drove slowly down Main Street looking at shop signs as he went. Outside one particular grimy market he saw a figure he recognised, but it took him so long to work out who it was, the figure was a blob in his rear-view mirror by the time he did. Mindie Tanner, one of his students, bent over a fruit and vegetable display, taking apples out of a box and putting them on the stand. Beside her, a child in a stroller, kicking its legs and waving its arms, apparently wanting to get out of its chair.

She was present in class that morning, looking exactly the same as she always did. Experience had apparently softened her attitude to Clint, though she took pains not to show it.

Today’s History 101 class was a tough one, built into the module for the express purpose of linking Clint’s freshman course to Bruce’s sophomore course on Politics. By the end of the session everyone including Clint was haggard, which at least meant they’d all been working. Clint walked briskly down the corridors towards his next classroom and collided with Natasha, running out of Steve’s office.

“Can you have a word with him?” she asked, making a thumbing gesture over her shoulder.

Clint looked over and noted Steve standing in the doorway of his Counsellor’s office with his arms crossed, looking frustrated. He went to say something to Natasha, but she was already storming off down the corridor.

“What was that about?” said Clint.

“Bucky,” said Steve. “And it’s just a misunderstanding.”

From where Clint was standing, it looked like more than that. He suddenly realised that he’d been neglecting Natasha since he’d got together with Phil, and resolved to have a proper talk with her later. Right now, though, he just didn’t have the time.

“Right,” said Clint, unsure of what else to say. “Gotta dash.” That much was true. He’d agreed to sub in for Bruce in one of his Politics and Society classes, which unfortunately took place in a different building, and he only had five minutes to get there.

“Right,” said Steve, as Clint sped off.

He spent the next hour completely out of his depth in a class he hadn’t prepared for, wondering whether Bruce and Natasha were okay. That was followed by two hours of teaching Empires. He was frankly relieved when it was time for the staff meeting.

“I’ll try to keep this brief,” said Pepper, checking her watch when Tony finally arrived. “Apologies from Bruce. He’s been unavoidably detained.” Pepper’s tone prevented any further questions on the matter.

“I’ve received word that the Business School are trying to broker a deal with a certain social media company, with a view to forming some sort of partnership.” She handed out photocopies of a document that included the logo of a social media site everyone in the room used on a daily basis.

“You what?” said Tony.

Pepper shrugged. “It’s still early days, and there are certain legal obstacles to overcome, but it’s apparently felt that a partnership with the university would be a positive move for a company whose popularity is currently – how shall I put this – waning due to recent changes in their data security policies. Not least its decision to decide for its users what their names should be.” Pepper (born Virginia) Potts paused, her mouth forming a moue of disapproval. “On the university’s side of things, it’s believed that this arrangement will provide invaluable, relevant work experience for the students in a field they already understand.”

“All the while undermining the standing of the other departments in favour of Business and Economics, naturally,” said Tony.

“This can’t work, surely?” said Clint. “This can’t be legal?”

“We’re looking into it,” said Pepper.

Around the table there were nods, and a general hush as people thought the situation through.

“Stark,” said Fury. “I believe you have some information for us?”

“That I do,” said Tony. “The Maria Stark foundation, under the auspices of myself, naturally...”

Fury frowned at him.

“Well, we’ve been working with local schools to set up a sort of unofficial school community network, which we can hopefully formalise in the future. The downside is that it’s going to mean extra work for everyone, naturally, but we figured that in the weeks leading up to Christmas, things were generally starting to run down here anyway.”

In the weeks before Christmas, things generally started to ‘run down’ because all the staff were exhausted.

“Look,” said Tony, waving his hands, “they want us to spend more time interacting with local schools. We’ve got five schools in the area who are interested in taking part in my televised Great Egg Race next year. We’re gonna have to limit ourselves to one team for the History school...”

Several of the staff groaned at this point, because inter-class rivalry was traditionally part of the fun of the competition.

“...but six teams is more than enough for one show. So, anyway, what that means is that I need you guys to spend some time at each school, steering folks in the right direction and giving advice on the basic tech they can use in the competition. No biggie.” He looked at Clint. “You can co-ordinate this. You’re the community outreach guy.”

“I’m going to need more information before I sign up to this,” said Clint.

Stark grinned, because anything other than an outright refusal was a win in his book.

“How much time?” said Natasha.

“Just a few hours a week. Look, you can all drop by my place one night next week, I’ll show you what they need. It won’t take long, promise.”

Natasha looked deeply sceptical, but kept silent.

“Barton, why don’t you drop by my office before hitting the bar on Monday? We can run through a few things. Seriously, it’s nothing. You’re gonna love it. Anyway,” Tony added. “I can’t stay long, I’ve got a film crew waiting in my office.” There was a gleam in Tony’s eye that suggested he was actively looking forward to this. With that, Tony got up from the table and left the room.

Clint leaned forward in his chair and gently tapped his forehead against the conference table.

On his way back to his office, he texted Phil asking if they could please go straight to his house instead of meeting at Thor’s that night. There was only so much of the department he could take today. The answer, of course, was yes. Then there was only one thing left to do before heading to Phil’s – check his emails. They included a reply from the organisers of a conference about an abstract for a paper he’d submitted the previous month. Clint’s paper had been accepted, and he was due to present his latest research at the conference the following Easter. Academically, this was great news. In other respects, this was awful – because there was no ‘latest research’. Oh hell.

He was laughing manically by the time he swung his bag into the back seat of his car.

Life had one more surprise to throw his way that day. On a whim, he stopped off on his way to Phil’s to buy some wine. Phil wasn’t much of a beer drinker, but he rarely had a chance to buy anything nice for himself either. Clint parked up outside one of the stores he’d passed on his way into work that morning, belatedly realising that this was ‘Tanner’s Stores’. As he wandered up and down the aisles, he heard a shrill female voice.

“But mooom, she said she’d helllp!”

“That’s enough of that, Sindy. Let her finish her work. I’m sure she’ll help you later.”

“But mom, she promised!”

“Enough!”

Mindie and Sindy, thought Clint. Some parents. There was the sound of stamping feet, and a girl not more than nine or ten years old stomped past him, angrily eyeing him up and down. Clint chose a bottle of wine that seemed to have a nicer label than the others and took it to the counter. He was not surprised to see Mindie sitting on the floor behind the counter, surrounded by books. As he passed the bottle to (presumably) Mindie’s mom, Mindie noticed him and did a double-take, then covered her work with a copy of ‘Men’s Health’. A double-page spread of a man with particularly glossy abs winked up at him.

“That’ll be nineteen seventy, please,” said Mindie’s mom.

As Clint handed over a twenty, Mindie acknowledged his existence with a quick nod and a “Hi, Doctor Barton.”

Behind Clint, a girl’s voice screamed, “that’s Doctor Buns?”

Mindie threw her books to one side and tore off around the side of the counter and down the aisle after her sister. Mindie’s mom looked skyward, shook her head, then silently placed the bottle in a bag for him. Clint could still see the girls chasing each other around the store as he reversed out of the parking space.

Phil greeted him at his front door, his phone held to his ear. “He’s here now, gotta go. Okay, you too. Bye.” He ended the call and put his phone in his pocket.

“Trouble?” asked Clint.

“Nah,” said Phil. “It was just Audrey the er, ex, giving me an update. It’s all fine. Come here you.” He took the bag containing the bottle from Clint and placed it to one side, then grabbed Clint by the hands and pulled him into the house. As Clint made it through the door, he closed it with his foot, then released Phil’s grip to dump his work bag on the floor beside the wine.

Phil smiled at him, and reclaimed Clint’s hands. “I’ve been thinking about this all day,” he said, moving towards him and sliding his arms around him. As Clint’s back collided with Phil’s front door, Phil grasped Clint’s hands again and raised them above Clint’s head. He leaned in close and teased Clint’s mouth with his tongue. Clint opened his mouth for him, but Phil was content to tease, flicking his tongue delicately against Clint’s own.

Clint sighed in frustration and tried to have more, but as he moved forward, Phil moved back. Clint freed one of his hands and grabbed hold of Phil’s butt, forcing their groins into contact.

Phil chuckled into Clint’s mouth. “Tough day?” he asked.

“You have no idea,” said Clint, freeing his other hand and using that to grab Phil’s butt as well.

“I need you,” said Phil.

“Okay,” said Clint. He released Phil, and Phil took his hand again and drew him up the stairs into his bedroom. As they stumbled along, Clint looked into Phil’s smiling eyes and felt a sudden warm rush of pleasure. He overtook Phil in the doorway and pulled him down on top of him on the bed. Phil pounced on him then, plunging his tongue deep into Clint’s mouth as they both struggled with each other’s clothes. As Clint pushed Phil’s pants down over his hips, Phil rubbed his cock against Clint’s, tenting the front of Clint’s underwear.

“Okay, Okay,” said Clint, pushing against Phil’s shoulders. Phil rolled off of him, stripping the rest of his clothes as Clint did the same. Clint moved to straddle Phil, his hands bracketing Phil’s face.

Phil’s hands, as they so often did, slid down Clint’s sides, finding the sensitive spots until they possessively grabbed his ass.

“Under the covers,” said Clint, because as great as this was, it was nearly December. He rolled off of Phil and slid between the sheets as Phil reached for the supplies in the nightstand then slipped into bed beside him.

They lay on their sides, facing each other, kissing deeply and rubbing against one another as they warmed up. Phil stroked Clint’s face as Clint ran his fingers around the ridges of Phil’s ear and down his throat, before cupping the muscle at the top of Phil’s arm.

“I want you,” said Phil again, breaking the kiss to worry at the skin on Clint’s neck. Phil’s hand trapped between them rubbed idly along the length of Clint’s penis, his other hand stroking at the crease between the cheeks of Clint’s ass.

“Okay,” said Clint.

Phil reached for the lube, and squeezed a generous portion onto his fingers. He carefully moved them back round behind Clint, careful not to lose the lube on the covers on the way. Phil’s finger effortlessly found the pucker of Clint’s ass and started to work against it as he once more kissed Clint’s mouth deeply and hungrily. Clint laughed and smiled into the kiss, because hell, Phil was good at this. Clint lost himself in the sensations as Phil’s finger slipped inside; then it was time for more lubricant, and more fingers. Clint rolled on top of Phil, grabbed a condom and passed it to him. Straddling Phil, he stroked Phil’s chest with one hand and his cock with the other, as Phil’s eyes gleamed at him, and Phil wordlessly put the condom on and lubed it up.

“You’re amazing,” said Phil when he was ready, and ran his hands still slightly slick with lubricant up the contours of Clint’s thighs, stomach, and chest. Clint nudged something with his foot; the tube of lubricant fell out onto the floor and stayed there.

Clint stroked Phil’s cheekbones, then placed one hand on the mattress beside Phil’s head, using it to brace himself. With the other hand, he reached behind himself to grasp Phil’s cock and guide it in. Phil pushed up as Clint sunk down onto him. Phil raised his knees and braced his feet against the bed as Clint moved his hands again, this time firmly holding Phil’s chest.

“Okay?” said Phil, as Clint sunk down fully onto him.

“Oh, yeah.”

Phil’s hands gripped Clint’s hips as he thrust up into him. Clint’s cock swayed between them. Phil, apparently, could barely take his eyes off of it.

“Hey,” said Clint, a little smugly. He stroked one of Phil’s nipples, which was extremely sensitive even without the added stimulation.

“Not fair,” said Phil, thrusting again.

Clint moved the hand to stroke himself, sliding it slowly along his cock as his other hand stayed braced against Phil’s chest.

“Really not fair,” said Phil, and moved fast, flipping Clint onto his back.

Clint lay on his back panting and laughing up at him as Phil checked that the condom was still securely on before adopting an expression that said, ‘well now I really mean business’. Clint was still chuckling as Phil moved between his open legs, grabbed Clint under the thighs, and pushed himself back into him.

“Oh, god,” said Phil, as Clint made a soft, grunting sound.

Clint held on tightly to Phil, hands tight on Phil’s biceps, legs firmly around Phil’s waist and hips as Phil pounded into him, changing his angle as he did so.

“Can you...?” said Clint, gesturing down towards his cock, leaking desperately between them. He was being rubbed by Phil’s abs, but the stimulation it was receiving was nowhere near enough.

“Yeah,” said Phil, “but I want to go down on you. Can you wait?”

“Oh yeah,” said Clint, as Phil thrust again, getting faster now.

Covered in a sheen of sweat, Phil groaned long and deep as he came. “Oh god,” he said, as he released Clint’s legs. Clint’s feet sank back onto the bed as Phil slipped out of him.

Phil moved to one side, quickly disposed of the condom, then slid back towards Clint, hot and sticky against him. He kissed Clint deeply again, a hand moving swiftly down Clint’s body to possessively stroke Clint’s cock once, twice, three times. Clint raised an eyebrow, and Phil grinned, then shimmied down the bed until his face lay close to Clint’s cock. Phil licked it, carefully, slowly, sucking the head as if he had all the time in the world and Clint groaned.

“Phil, please,” he said, grabbing the sheets in frustration. For a second, Clint thought he felt Phil chuckle against him, the Phil was sucking him deeper into his mouth, smoothly taking him down. One of Phil’s hands worked the part of Clint’s cock that Phil’s mouth and throat couldn’t reach, and it didn’t take long for Clint to come hard, groaning loudly as he did so.

Clint came to himself a few seconds later, as Phil slid back up the bed until they were face to face and pulled the covers up around them.

“Did you just pass out?” said Phil.

“Maybe,” said Clint, closing his eyes.

“I love you, you know,” Phil whispered against his eyelids.


	9. Barton: the Podcast, the Series, the Musical

Clint found the lubricant the next morning, when he stumbled out of bed and stood on it. He narrowly missed hitting the nightstand with his head as he bent to pick it up, then in the bathroom – Phil’s glorious bathroom – his lubricated foot slipped out from under him and he only just avoided falling over as the rug shot across the floor. In the bedroom, Phil heard a stream of swear words as a small avalanche of bathroom supplies were knocked off shelves.

“Are you okay?” he yelled.

The door opened, revealing Clint, completely naked and still looking thoroughly debauched from the night before. “Fine,” he said. “Just slipped.”

Phil took a long, appreciative look at him. “You know what,” he said, “I think I’ll make us some coffee while you get your shower.”

“Yeah,” said Clint. “Please.”

As Phil got out of bed, Clint said, “Phil.” The tone in Clint’s voice was different somehow.

“What?”

“I love you too, you know,” Clint said, smiled at him, then disappeared back into the bathroom.

They spent the weekend rushing around between Clint’s apartment, Phil’s house, and the supermarket, with Clint struggling to find the mental capacity to do work he absolutely had to do before Monday, when what he really wanted to do was go back to bed with Phil. Of course, they somehow managed to find time for plenty of that, too.

Sunday morning, Clint awoke to find Phil sitting up in bed wearing his reading glasses, reading through what appeared to be a terribly dry report. It made Clint feel instantly horny, so he shuffled down under the covers and took Phil in his mouth. Then, when Phil had come, biting his fist to muffle his cry, glasses askew and still clutching the report, Clint moved the paperwork to one side, straightened Phil’s glasses, and fucked him.

Sunday evening, Clint donned the humorous apron Phil kept in his kitchen, and they bickered playfully about the right way to make pasta sauce. As Clint bent over the stove to stir the sauce, Phil slapped Clint lightly on the butt with a spatula. This wasn’t fair, because Clint couldn’t leave the pan, and couldn’t reciprocate. Then Phil moved behind Clint, manhandled the lower half of Clint’s body so it was out of range of the stove, and undid Clint’s pants. He rested his head on Clint’s shoulder as he worked Clint’s cock, and Clint feigned interest in the sauce as his hand shook and he came over the apron.

All in all, it was a good weekend. The memory of it buoyed Clint up as he sailed through Monday’s teaching and a dreary, rainy office hour. Looking at his calendar, he was somewhat surprised to see that it was the first of December. Three more weeks and he could have a few days to himself, or alone with Phil. Whatever. As Clint idly updated the electronic attendance roster, he wondered what Phil was doing for Christmas. Would he be staying here, or going back to see his parents? Clint vaguely remembered something Phil had said about his folks being out near Seattle somewhere. Two mouse clicks later, Clint remembered that Christmas meant presents, which meant that he would need to buy Phil something. Quite possibly something to replace one of the things he’d broken recently. He marked the wrong student absent, then quickly corrected his mistake.

By the time it was time for his meeting with Tony, Clint really didn’t have the energy for it. He knocked on Stark’s office door and opened it without waiting for an answer, only to find Steve sitting on the edge of Tony’s desk, enthusiastically kissing Tony. Steve turned slowly to face him, pupils wide and still grasping Tony’s tie. As Clint stepped into the room, Tony took advantage of Steve’s distraction, and moved on to Steve’s ear.

“O...kay,” said Clint. “I’ll come back later.”

Finally, Tony moved away from Steve, and raised an eyebrow. “Well, I think that looks all in order, Steve,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Steve, patting the front of Tony’s shirt. He held his glasses in his other hand, and waved them around for a few seconds before putting them back on. “I’ll, er, I’ll just get on with that, then?”

After a couple of seconds pause, Steve slid off the desk and walked towards the door. Looking at Clint now, he said, “See you later?”

“Possibly,” said Clint.

“Don’t wait up,” said Tony, winking.

Steve rolled his eyes at Tony as he left the room.

“Okay, so, where were we?” said Tony, slapping his palms together and rubbing his hands.

“Feeling mildly uncomfortable?” said Clint.

Tony grinned.

“We were going to discuss the outreach thing? The Egg Race?” said Clint.

“Ah, yeah. About that,” said Tony. “You know I said there was going to be a TV special?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I spoke to the producer over the weekend, and he came up with another idea.”

“Am I going to like this?” said Clint. He thought about it then added, “I guess I’m not going to like this.”

Tony stood up and went to an antique drinks cabinet in the corner of the room. He very quickly poured them each a glass of scotch, handed one to Clint, then sat back down. “Well, hear me out, it’s not a problem. In fact, it’s the opposite if we want to promote the school.”

Tony took a sip from his glass, then put it down on the table. “The producer likes the school, likes the concept, so what he’s suggesting, for maximum impact, is a series.”

“A series?”

“Just a short one. Introduce the teams from each school, follow the building process over a few weeks focussing on the personalities, the drama, the teenage angst... no one knows how the other schools are doing... will the gritty urban kids beat the posh college kids? All that crap.”

“Tony, hang on,” said Clint. “Back up. A series?”

“Course, to really help our campaign we’re gonna have to shift the competition to before the exams, so I’d still have to square that away with the Dean. But she’s a real sweetie, and once we get Pepper on board with this too, all the admin will fall into line.”

“Stark, a series?”

“Just four... no, six, eight episodes, max. Seriously – you’re gonna love it.” Tony shrugged. “And it’ll be easy once you’ve got the podcast out of the way.”

“I’m doing a what now?” said Clint.

“It’s just a radio broadcast. Internet radio. It’s no biggie.”

“Yeah, that’s what you keep saying,” said Clint, raising his voice to try to stop Stark from talking. He belatedly realised that he was still holding a glass of scotch, so he drank it straight down and put the glass on the desk. “Let me get this straight. At some point over the weekend, you apparently decided that I was doing a TV series and a radio broadcast and you didn’t think it’d be a good idea to, I don’t know, check with me first?”

Tony looked at Clint as if Clint was speaking a language he didn’t understand, and finally fell silent. He stared at Clint, assessing, then knocked back the rest of his drink.

“Right,” said Tony. “Don’t decide anything right now. Before you decide, you should listen to something I did a while back. Where did I put it?” Tony lifted piles of paper on his desk, opened and closed desk drawers without actually checking their contents, then span around in his chair and looked vacantly at a spot on the wall. “I think it’s in the storage closet,” said Tony, after a few seconds. “Hang on, I’ll be right back.” He ran out of the room, and Clint slumped into one of Tony’s guest chairs to wait.

Tony’s office without Tony in it was actually very pleasant. The temporary respite gave Clint a few minutes to appreciate The Suit: the object that had convinced Clint to pursue Stark as his PhD supervisor in the first place. Surrounded by stacks of wood, scraps of metal and the assorted detritus of years, The Suit dominated the room. Tony’s early work had focussed on the development of iron plate armour, and in order to prove his theories about early construction techniques, he had naturally decided to make a suit of his own. Rumour had it that he had even worn the six-foot tall artefact to his viva and his defence had been delayed while they prised his visor open. Rumour also had it that there were another dozen or so similar suits hidden in his workshop, in various states of disrepair. Whatever the actual truth, the object was impressive and still got an outing on TV every once in a while, which explained what the TV crew were doing in Tony’s office the previous week.

“Here,” said Tony, skidding back into the room and hurling a CD in Clint’s direction. “Listen to this. It’s a podcast I did a few years back. Just like that, that’s what we want.” The CD landed squarely in Clint’s lap, and Clint let it lie there.

“First things first, Tony,” said Clint. “Let’s talk about outreach. We’ve got five local schools plus us, making six teams in all, right?”

“Obviously,” said Tony.

“And you want one member of staff to mentor each school. So that’s me, you, Fury, Bruce and Natasha.”

“Yup.”

“So in this grand scheme of yours, who’s going to look after the university team?”

Tony stared at Clint and blinked slowly. “Get Pepper to do it.” He waved a hand. “That way we can’t be accused of unfair bias.”

“You ask her,” said Clint, throwing that one straight back at Tony.

“Hey, you’re outreach guy.”

Clint raised an eyebrow and said nothing. He resolved to have a long conversation with Pepper sometime soon, at which point he could pretty much guarantee that the idea to make a whole series out of the Egg Race would be knocked back down to a manageable size.

“Any thoughts about allocating staff members to schools?” said Clint.

Tony shrugged. “Draw lots. I don’t care. Just – make sure Natasha doesn’t pick the girls’ school. We don’t want to get lumbered with the same old gendered bullshit the TV company usually pulls.”

“Right.” Privately, Clint thought that Tony would be an even worse fit for the girls’ school, but he didn’t say anything.

“And you’d better not get teamed up with Principal hottie, either,” said Tony. “Last thing we need is you two smouldering all over prime time TV.”

Clint sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Right, before we go any further, I think it’d probably be a good idea if you gave me some contact details for this TV company. If I’m supposed to be organising this.”

Tony looked a little surprised, pulled out his phone and sent a message. “Done,” he said. “They’ll call you.”

“And I think I need to sit down and organise some kind of plan for how I think this can work before I get steamrollered into some kind of... epic.”

“You do that. So, is there anything else?”

“About the actual tech?” said Clint.

“Ah, okay,” said Tony “Well, it’s all pretty sketchy at the moment. I think we need to set all the teams up on the top field. All we need to provide on the day is some tanks and a supply of water, and the teams can bring all the gear they need with them.”

“One more thing,” said Clint, because his background was ultimately very different from Stark’s, and he thought about this kind of thing. “Hate to mention it, but budget. What’s happening about that?”

Tony waved his hand again. “There’ll be something from the Foundation, something from the TV company. We’ll, I don’t know, just make sure it’s divided up equally. The theme is water management, so budget’s mostly going to go on basic DIY supplies like drainpipes, wood, that kind of thing. Maybe a few tools but we’ve got a stash of those already.”

“And the prizes?”

“Leave it with me. We’ll sort something out like we did last year. Bursaries and shit. Throw in a few iPads, mountain bikes, that kind of thing.”

Clint sighed and tried to banish the sinking feeling in his stomach. “Just one more thing,” he said. “No sponsorship.”

There was a glimmer in Tony’s eye then, like this was something he’d been thinking about, but didn’t actually think that Clint would mention. “We’re going to have to discuss that with the TV company,” said Tony.

Clint noticed that Tony had switched from talking about the organisation of the event as Clint’s baby to including himself again as soon as sponsorship had been mentioned.

“Is that everything? That’s everything, right?” said Tony.

“Yeah, for now,” said Clint. “I’ll speak to the TV people and put a plan together. Let you know if I need anything else.” He picked up the CD that Tony had given him and walked out. He had so much work to do for this. He was going to need to rope in as many people as he could – PhD students, undergraduates, parents, everyone. And, by the way, do his actual job too. All in all, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this keen for the week to be over.

Over the next few days, Clint struggled through several versions of the schedule for the event, spent interminable hours talking to the prospective producer of the TV programme, and had a couple of meetings with Pepper to discuss logistics. They agreed – and the TV company concurred – that anything over a total airtime length of one hour would be too expensive in terms of everyone’s time and resources. There was no way any of the schools would countenance their lesson schedules being interrupted for six full weeks, and the production company couldn’t spare the technical staff. Clint put together a plan whereby each school had their own representative from the university’s History department, with each one of them allocated to a different weekday evening. That way, a single camera crew could visit all five schools and regular classes didn’t get interrupted. He also kept the schedule deliberately short. University exams were taken a month earlier than school exams, but even so, a production schedule of five weeks starting in mid-May was going to disrupt everyone’s work. Secretly, both Clint and Pepper also wondered how this farce could possibly affect their chances of keeping the school open when that decision would need to be made shortly after Christmas. By Friday lunchtime, all that was left for them to do before work began in earnest on the project was for Pepper to start putting together the promotional material that would be released in the new year, and for Clint to let his colleagues know which schools they’d been allocated to. He decided to put that off for a while.

When he dashed back from Pepper’s office to collect the lesson plans for his Empires classes, he unlocked his door to find Natasha inside waiting for him. She sat sprawled across his office chair, one foot balanced on his desk. When she saw him, she idly threw one of his juggling balls into the hoop over the wastepaper basket.

“You took your time,” she said.

“Meeting with Pepper.”

Natasha tilted her head and looked squarely at him. It was a look she’d perfected over the years, and it usually made him wonder whether he’d forgotten something important.

“What’s up?” Clint asked, with growing dread.

“I was hoping we could have a chat,” said Natasha. She raised one eyebrow, and Clint suddenly remembered that he’d promised Natasha they could have a heart-to-heart over a week earlier.

Clint locked his door behind him and sat at his desk.

“I need some advice,” said Natasha. “I’ve got this mature student, an old friend of Steve’s.”

“Bucky, right?”

“Yeah. I’m not sure what to do. Steve says there’s no issues there, and I believe him. But there’s something... off about him.”

“In what way?”

“He just sits there staring at me and scowling. Steve says that’s just the way he looks when he’s thinking, but I don’t know.”

“Does he do the work?”

“Yeah.”

“And is he disruptive in class?”

“Well, no, but...”

“So what’s the problem?”

Natasha frowned. “Sometimes he just looks all...”

“All?”

Her frown changed into an expression that was surprisingly doe-eyed. It took Clint a couple of seconds to realise that she was mimicking Bucky. He bit the inside of his cheek to prevent himself from smiling, then reached over to his wastepaper basket and reclaimed the juggling balls that she’d thrown in there.

“You do realise you’ve just duplicated the expression that half the male population have when they see you, right?” said Clint.

Natasha leaned over and grabbed one of the juggling balls from his hand, leaned back, and threw it at his chest.

“Be serious, Barton.”

“I am being, Tash. Apparently, he likes you.”

“And the frowning?”

“Is thinking, like Steve said. You know that. I don’t know why you’re having problems with this. You’re usually so good at reading people.” Clint paused. “Oh.”

“Oh, what?” said Natasha.

“Is that the problem? You’re concerned because you can’t get a read on him?”

Natasha scowled, and they stared at each other across his desk for a few seconds. Eventually, Natasha nodded to herself, pushed herself out of the chair with an air of finality, unlocked Clint’s office door, and walked out.

“Well, that was interesting,” said Clint.

Clint felt a little bad about his treatment of Natasha, but she apparently held no grudge and was happy enough in the bar later that evening. At the end of the night, Clint left his car parked outside the bar and let Phil drive him home.

“You’re like Bambi when you’re drunk,” said Phil, pouring Clint into bed.

“Well, so’s your face,” said Clint, face down against the pillow.

“Just how drunk are you?” said Phil.

“Not really,” said Clint, turning over and looking up at him. “Why?”

“I need to talk to you about Christmas.” Phil sat on the edge of the bed, hands together. He looked at the floor.

Clint had been wondering when they’d have this conversation for a while. How would he feel if Phil asked him to stay with him over Christmas? Even though they saw each other several times a week, Christmas felt different somehow. More serious.

“Did I tell you I usually stay with my sister?”

“You mentioned your parents in Seattle. And I know you have a sister.” said Clint. “And she’s got three girls. All at school.”

“That’s right,” said Phil, and gave Clint a little smile. “Well, I usually spend Christmas with my sister, and see the folks at some point in the new year. I’m going to Megan’s again this year, and er, you can’t come with me.”

Clint felt a sinking feeling in his stomach.

“I want you to come, it’s just there’s no space. And it’d be difficult. When I’m there, I sleep in the box room and the girls all share a room. Which can be a nightmare, only with no one sleeping. I can’t ask my sister to give up her bed just so we can share.”

“That’s okay, I get it,” said Clint, putting out a hand for Phil to hold.

“We’ll still get most of Christmas together, if that’s what you want. I’ll only be gone a few days. I just can’t put Megan to any more trouble.”

“That’s okay, really,” said Clint, sitting up now and putting an arm round Phil. “We can still Skype on Christmas day, right?”

“Right,” said Phil, nodding. “Oh, god.”

“What?”

“When the girls see you, I am never going to hear the end of it.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re so...” Phil leaned forward and captured Clint’s lips with his own. “Gorgeous.”

Somehow, this compliment didn’t make Clint feel any less sad.


	10. ‘Twas the Weeks Before Christmas...

‘Twas the weeks before Christmas, and all through the school, not a creature was stirring ‘cept Barton, the fool,’ thought Clint the following Monday. Ten o’clock at night, and he was just heading home. Everyone else was probably in the bar except... whale song? Seriously? There could only be one person in the department who listened to whale song.

Clint knocked gently on Bruce’s door and let himself in.

“Hey, Bruce.”

“Hi!” said Bruce, softly. “You’re late tonight.”

“Not the only one.”

Bruce muted his music and they looked at each other across Bruce’s full desk. Clint noticed that someone had rearranged some of the penguins so they formed a surreal nativity scene on Bruce’s window sill.

“Are you going to be here long?” asked Clint.

“No. I’ve been meaning to go home for a while. But the upstairs neighbours work shifts, and they’re renovating their kitchen at the moment, so I thought I’d do my evening’s work here for a change. They’ll have stopped by the time I get back.”

“Ah, okay.” Clint paused and examined Bruce’s tired and sagging features. “Tell me to mind my own business if you like, but is everything all right?”

Bruce looked surprised. “Yeah, why?”

“You seem to have had a few doctor’s appointments recently. Like I said, it’s none of my business.”

Bruce chuckled. “You’re right, I’ve had a few of those. But it’s not anything to worry about. Really. Look. Sit down a minute?”

Clint did as he was told.

“I’ve not mentioned it, because you’re right, it’s not really anyone’s business, and it’s not going to impact on my work – or anyone else’s. It’s just that I’ve got... I’ve seemed to have developed some kind of metabolic disorder. Anyway, no one seems able to tell me what it is. So... it’s taking a while to work out what we can do about it. Medication-wise. But really, I’m fine. It’s not life-threatening or anything.” Bruce forced another chuckle, which told Clint more than anything that Bruce was worried.

Bruce made a gesture with his hands to indicate that the conversation was over, but continued anyway. “Apparently my diet hasn’t been all that great, and I haven’t been getting enough exercise or sleep either. So I think it’s time to make a few life changes.”

“Okay,” said Clint. As an afterthought, he added. “If you fancy some exercise, you can always come out to the archery range with me. Not that I actually seem to get up there much these days.”

Bruce smiled. “No thanks. Not my sort of thing. I think I’ll stick to my Tai Chi. Anyway, how come you’re here so late?”

“Working on the script for the podcast thing I’m supposed to be doing to promote Tony’s series. If you can believe that. It’s about the school.”

“How’s that going?”

“Slowly.”

“Rather you than me.”

“While I think of it,” said Clint, “Remember what Pepper was saying about allocating each of us to a local school?”

“Yeah?”

“How do you feel about working with St Hilda’s?”

“The girl’s school? Fine.” Bruce spread his hands wide. “They’re a good bunch, from what I remember.”

“Good,” said Clint. “That’s a relief. If I’d allocated them to Tony it would have been a disaster.”

“Possibly,” said Bruce. “What about the others? Which schools are they getting?”

“Not sure yet. I keep changing my mind. I think my main sticking point is that I don’t want to allocate Tony to any of them.”

“So allocate him to Phil’s school,” said Bruce.

Clint shuddered. “Why?”

“Because if Tony does anything too... ‘Tony’, you know it’ll be reported back to you,” said Bruce. “And I suspect Phil will be able to manage him.”

“Huh. I guess you’re right. Don’t suppose I can persuade you to tell Phil, can I?”

“Not on your life.” Bruce smiled. “Anyway, shoo. Go home. Let me finish up here.”

“Will do,” said Clint, and got up to leave. As he reached the door, on impulse he asked, “What’re you doing for Christmas?”

“Haven’t decided yet,” said Bruce. “Why?”

“No reason really,” said Clint. “But I’m going to be staying in town. So give me a call if you want to do something.”

“Okay, will do,” said Bruce.

As Clint walked to his car he mulled over his current situation. How, even though he enjoyed his work, it was nothing like what he had been expecting. When he’d pictured his career, his imagination had fixated on interacting with students and watching them develop intellectually. The reality was satisfying in its own way, but included way too many hours spent on admin and marking, too many urgent emails and meetings. On top of all of that, he’d lost track of what was happening in the lives of his friends, most recently, Natasha’s issues with Bucky, and now, Bruce’s health problems. Even in his relationship with Phil, he found it difficult to remember things that Phil had told him about his life and family. If Clint was going to make a new year’s resolution for next year, it would be to spend more time on the important stuff, and less time on, well, admin. Maybe a few days without Phil over Christmas would help him regain a sense of perspective.

The following day was, naturally, stuffed full of admin. Thankfully, it also contained a couple of hours of lecturing: preparing his students for the few remaining History 101 seminars before Christmas, which were always a lot of fun. Since student numbers had a tendency to drop off in the weeks leading up to Christmas, his few sessions bundled together various concepts that would be picked up again by Tony and Bruce in their sophomore-year modules: measuring time and predicting the future. These topics briefly covered astronomy, astrology, a brief nod towards ancient religions and oracles, clocks, clock-making and tacked on the end of that, mapping the globe, the introduction of time zones, and (bizarrely, although it did make sense once you knew about it) the introduction of railways. Students could then cherry-pick from this range of subjects when writing their essay due in in the new year.

He was full of enthusiasm as he delivered his talk, and at least some of the students appeared to be taking an interest. Neville, who always gave good value in terms of the number of highlighter pens and sticky tabs he used on his notes, appeared to have an existential crisis part-way through Clint’s lecture when he attempted to cross-reference his work while still taking notes on what Clint was saying. Mindie, now apparently comfortable in the lecture hall although too cool to show it, made the occasional note in her notepad, and goggled a little at his description of ancient clock-making. Daniel Spencer, erstwhile side-kick of Mindie Tanner, slouched off to one side and stared into the middle distance. Even from this distance, Clint could see that he’d drawn a tank on his note-pad – the army kind, not the water kind – and didn’t appear to have written anything.

On a whim, as the lecture finished Clint intercepted Mindie before she could leave. “Mindie, can you wait a moment?” he asked her.

She goggled at him some more, and looked as if she was wondering what she had done wrong. He looked around to check that they were out of earshot of her friends.

“I was wondering if you could do me a favour,” said Clint.

“O...kay,” Mindie asked, still very uncertain.

“Forget this if I’m wrong, or this is difficult.” Clint ploughed on. “But do you have access to large, empty plastic bottles in the shop?”

“Er, like those big water cooler bottles? That kind of thing?”

Water cooler bottles, Clint thought. Of course. There must be some of those lying around the university somewhere, awaiting recycling. “Er, something like that,” Clint said. “But maybe something smaller? Something one person could easily lift up and flip over by themselves.”

“Er, maybe?” said Mindie. “I’ll ask mom.”

“Thanks,” said Clint. “Let me know, or I can pop by the shop?”

Mindie chewed on her lip. “It’d probably be best if you asked at the shop. Mom... er...”

“It’s a bit random, I know,” said Clint. “If I’d asked my parents for that kind of thing they’d probably have thought that I was up to no good.”

“Mmm,” said Mindie. She shuffled a little. “What d’you want them for?”

“Well, I thought we could have a practical in Friday’s class – make a water-clock.”

“For real?” said Mindie.

“Yeah, sure,” said Clint, “Why not?”

Mindie laughed as she left the hall. “Oh, I have to be there when you ask mom. She’s never going to believe it.”

“I missed you last night,” said Phil, when Clint appeared on his doorstep several hours later. “I’m glad you came round.” Phil’s eyes twinkled at him, reflecting the Christmas lights from the other houses in the street. His gaze fell to Clint’s lips, then back up to Clint’s eyes. “Come on in.”

Clint readjusted the heavy bag he was carrying and followed Phil through into the open-plan space that was a combination of living, dining and office area. Compared with the rest of the street, Phil’s house was an oasis of calm. “No decorations yet?” said Clint.

Phil looked at him in surprise. “I have a decoration. Look.” He gestured to a tiny, tasteful silver candelabrum on his dining table. It had a sprig of holly on it.

Clint looked at him disapprovingly. “You call that a decoration? Oh, you and I are going to have a long conversation about decorations,” said Clint.

“Hah,” said Phil. “Not until after I’ve done this.” He reached out and snagged the bag from Clint’s shoulder, then moved into Clint’s personal space. “Christ, what have you got in here, it weighs a ton,” he said as he placed the bag on the floor.

“Christmas decorations,” said Clint, with a mischievous expression on his face. He leaned forward and kissed Phil on the lips, then took Phil’s face in his hands and kissed him more deeply. Phil’s hands slid round him, one arm around his waist, the other reaching around towards his butt.

“Mmm,” said Phil, a few minutes later. He broke the kiss and placed a hand on Clint’s chest. “Before we go any further with this, there’s something else I need to do tonight.”

Clint raised an eyebrow.

“Nothing like that,” said Phil. “Sadly. Let me just get a drink. Do you want anything?” He stepped back a little regretfully, eyeing Clint’s lips.

“Coffee’s fine,” said Clint.

Phil walked to the kitchen and Clint followed him. He watched him make their drinks.

“So?” said Clint, as Phil continued to work in silence.

Phil nodded to himself as if deciding something. “Before you said you were coming over tonight, I’d already agreed to speak to Megan, my sister.” He handed Clint a mug.

“Okay.”

“So, do you want to be introduced, or do you want to make yourself scarce while I talk to her?”

“Introduced,” said Clint. “Sure, why not. Let’s meet the folks.”

“Okay then,” said Phil. He led them back out of the kitchen to the small office he’d set up in the part of the open-plan living space that was under the stairs. Clint personally thought it was insane of Phil to call this his office, because in any normal office you didn’t run the risk of hitting your head on a staircase.

“Grab a chair and bring it over,” Phil said, starting up his computer. He wiggled the mouse and flexed his fingers impatiently while waiting for the sluggish old machine to rouse itself.

“I’ll see if I can do that without disturbing any of your Christmas decorations,” said Clint, snagging one of the chairs from the dining table and sitting just out of range of the camera.

“Funny guy.”

It took a couple of minutes for the system to be up and running, and when Phil was satisfied, he started Skype. After a few seconds, the call was accepted and the screen revealed a small, crowded living space decked from floor to ceiling with purple, pink and white Christmas decorations. A girl with straight brown hair aged about six years old stared out at them. “Hi, uncle Phil,” she said, then yelled over her shoulder, “mom, it’s uncle Phil.”

“Hi, Emma,” said Phil, and waved in a way that Clint thought was both desperately cheesy and cute.

“I heard you,” said a woman’s voice from somewhere else in the room. “I’m coming.”

“I got a badge in soccer,” said Emma. “And a certificate in reading. And another certificate in spelling.”

“That’s great,” said Phil.

A woman a few years younger than Phil crouched down next to the computer, a long brown ponytail swinging over her shoulder as she did so. “Hi Phil,” she said, then she turned to her daughter and added, “are you going to let me talk to Phil now?”

“In a minute,” said Emma. “I’m telling uncle Phil about my prizes.”

“I heard about your prizes,” said Phil.

“Later, Emms,” said Megan, “I need to talk to uncle Phil about Christmas right now.”

“Are you coming for Christmas, uncle Phil?”

“That’s what we need to talk about, so scoot,” said Megan. “Honestly.”

Emma pouted a little but gave up the chair to her mother.

“Finally,” said Megan, and sat down. Somewhere else in the room a TV blared out, then was turned down at Megan’s command.

“No Hayley and Pippa tonight?” said Phil.

“Hayley’s at karate. She should be back any minute. Pip’s supposedly doing her homework. Anyway, I can’t talk long,” said Megan, “I have to get this one to bed.”

“Okay,” said Phil.

“Christmas?” said Megan. “You’re still coming?”

“Sure,” said Phil. “On the 23rd, if that’s okay? It’s better for the traffic.”

“That’s fine by me, only you will have to help out with the chores.”

“Of course,” said Phil. “When don’t I?”

Megan gave Phil the kind of raised-eyebrow look that Phil often directed at Clint when expressing disbelief.

“Oh, hey. I was a conscientious brother.”

“Uh-huh,” said Megan, in a tone dripping with sarcasm. “Anyway, 23rd through to the 26th, right?”

“Right.”

“Anyway, I was thinking you could bring your young man with you,” said Megan. “You really should. It’ll be no problem.”

“Megs, there’s no way we can both fit in that room.”

“Have my bed, I don’t mind.”

“Megan, he’s here,” said Phil, interrupting.

“Oh, here, as in here here, now?” said Megan.

“Yes, here. As in right here,” said Phil, the tips of his ears pinkening as he reached for Clint’s shirt and pulled him into range of the camera. Clint felt like a deer trapped in the headlights as he and Megan eyed each other.

“Hi,” he said, his smile a little strained. He gave an awkward little wave.

“Oh, hi!” said Megan, and beamed at him. “Nice to meet you!” Her face turned to Phil and she raised both eyebrows and nodded in approval.

“Oh, you can stop that,” said Phil, smiling back at her. “Megan, meet Clint, Clint, meet my annoying sister, Megan.”

“Hi,” said Clint again.

“Hi,” said Megan. “Phil’s been telling me all about you.” Megan’s grin turned mischievous, and Phil frowned back at her.

“I’m serious though, guys,” said Megan. “Really, you should both come and stay for Christmas. It’ll be no bother. I can stay in Emma’s room and the girls can share, same as usual. It’s not like I’m going to get much sleep anyway with my house full of evil Ninjas.”

“Evil Ninjas?” said Phil.

“Honestly, they’ve been driving me batty. –Er. Battier. They’ve been turning this place upside down looking for presents, and they think they’re being sneaky about it.”

Phil chuckled.

“But anyway, the offer’s there. You should think about it, but don’t worry, Clint, if you can’t make it. Just give me a few days’ warning one way or the other.”

“Okay,” said Clint. “I’ll think about it.”

Phil and his sister talked for a few minutes more, catching up on recent events while Clint remained where he was, sitting beside Phil and watching them both. Megan and Phil both very carefully kept him involved in the conversation, and Clint started to feel a warm glow of something building in his chest.

“Who’s that?” said a girl’s voice, and Emma appeared behind her mother.

“That’s Clint, honey. Phil’s friend.”

“Okay. Hi Clint,” said Emma, and waved. Clint waved back. Emma passed behind her mother and could be seen in the background, holding up a large stuffed toy dinosaur.

“Go get ready for bed, honey,” said Megan. “I’ll be up in a minute.”

“Okay,” said Emma.

“Right, gotta go. It’s been nice meeting you, Clint. Good catching up, Phil.”

They exchanged a few pleasantries in goodbye, and Phil terminated the call.

“Well,” said Phil, a little nervously. “That’s my sister.”

“She’s nice,” said Clint. “I like her.”

“I think she likes you, too, and, er, she means it. We’d both like you there for Christmas. If that’s what you want.”

Clint rubbed the back of his head. “Honestly? The Christmas thing’s kind of thrown me for a loop. I wasn’t expecting it. Okay if I take a couple of days to think about it?”

“Sure,” said Phil.

“I mean, it sounds great. I’m just... not used to family. And there’s work.”

“That’s okay, I understand.” Phil looked into Clint’s eyes, his own expression open, questioning. He obviously saw something that he liked there, and leaned forward to kiss him. “Just let me know a bit nearer to the time. Anyway, how about some dinner?”

Dinner was a quiet affair, eaten while slumped on the couch watching some trashy show on TV. Clint was maybe slightly more quiet than he would usually be. Sure, the thought of a break held a lot of appeal, but his list of work was growing longer and longer. Over the next month he knew he had to cover class preparation, preliminary discussions with students about their thesis topics, and any amount of admin. Then there were edits and re-writes of the book of his PhD thesis, research for the paper he’d be giving at the conference next year, some basic outreach work that he’d let slide because of the Egg Race, and preparations for the Egg Race itself, which included his podcast. And two weeks out of that month he was supposed to be ‘on holiday’. He nestled into the crook of Phil’s arm and watched his face, calm and relaxed in the light of the television. The decision was pretty much made for him. He was finding it more and more difficult to spend nights apart.

Clint awoke shortly after midnight to find Phil’s side of the bed empty. Muted noises from downstairs suggested that Phil was watching TV. He pulled on Phil’s robe and padded downstairs.

“Did I wake you?” said Phil.

“No. I just woke up and wondered where you were.”

“Couldn’t get to sleep, so I thought I’d come back down here for a while.”

“Are you okay?” asked Clint.

“Yeah. I was just working through a few things.”

“Oh?”

“Nothing for you to worry about.” Phil smiled. “Thinking about Christmas, the divorce. Everything’s fine. Anyway, come here.” Phil snagged the front of Clint’s robe and pulled him towards him. As Clint’s mouth met Phil’s, Phil opened to him and they shared a deep, dirty kiss, and Clint’s robe fell open. Then out of the corner of his eye, Clint noticed what Phil was watching.

“Oh, no,” said Clint, pulling back. “I can’t even.” He sat down next to Phil on couch and wrapped the robe tightly around himself. Phil grinned at him.

“Ladles and jelly-spoons,” said the tiny manic figure of Tony Stark looking out at them from the TV screen.

“Oh, god, please turn that off,” said Clint, clapping a hand over his eyes.

On screen, Tony, dressed in Tudor costume resplendent with an alarmingly-shaped codpiece, ran into an ancient, black and white wood-beamed building, presumably somewhere in England. The camera followed him into a kitchen, where he turned round and expansively gestured at the open fire, the long wooden table, and an assortment of kitchen implements. The codpiece waved from side to side in a sinister fashion.

“May I present to you,” continued Tony, “the delicious, delectable, and sometimes downright disgusting, history of cooking. In Roman times...”

“Oh, god, make it stop,” said Clint, picking up a cushion and clamping it to his face.

Phil chuckled, and with an evil grin, muted the sound, but didn’t turn the TV off. On screen, Tony was now holding a stuffed dormouse in one hand and an anchovy in the other. The dormouse and the anchovy appeared to be making friends.

“Why?” said Phil. “Hayley loves this show. She calls him ‘the man who jumps on stuff’.”

Clint dropped the cushion onto his lap. “Accurate, I guess. And he’s definitely had much less favourable reviews.”

“Hey, isn’t this the episode where Stark jumps out of a giant pie?”

“I think it’s technically a steamed pudding,” said Clint. “And it’s all done with CGI,” he added, bitterly.

The reason for the strangely-shaped codpiece now became apparent, as Tony unscrewed the end and attached a whisk to it. “Don’t try this at home kids,” he added with a wink and a cheeky grin. “Of course, this isn’t one hundred percent historically accurate, and you’d be surprised how few people want to eat scones made this way.”

“This is absolutely positively the only time that I am one hundred percent grateful that Stark went into teaching rather than catering,” said Clint.

Phil coughed.

“I’m blaming any bad dreams on you. Just so you know,” said Clint, and snuggled in close to Phil’s side.

Phil leaned in close and whispered in his ear, “Do you think Tony might let me borrow that codpiece?”

Clint shot him a wounded look.


	11. Party Favours

Clint stopped off at Tanner’s Store on the way into work the following morning and had a chat with Mindie’s mom. She laughed at him, but he left the store with a few large empty plastic bottles that had been put aside for recycling.

With his friends uppermost in his mind, he dropped by to see Natasha as she was preparing to give a lecture.

“Sorry about the other day,” he said, as she placed stacks of handouts on the table by the door. She shrugged, and he guessed that meant all was forgiven. “Okay if I sit in for a few minutes?”

She looked at him with a strange half-smile. “Sure, as long as you don’t disrupt the class.”

Clint placed a palm on his chest in a ‘what, me?’ gesture, and she smiled fully then. “I promise,” he said.

He sat at the back with a notepad, sketching out some ideas for his classes the following week while simultaneously enjoying how Natasha gave the lecture. Very few of the students took their eyes off her except to make notes, but among them, Bucky was in a class of his own.

From what little Clint had been able to glean from Steve, Bucky was one of Steve’s oldest friends, recently retired from the army due to injury, and now looking to gain additional qualifications so he could start a new career. He was apparently also quite dyslexic, which perhaps explained why he took no notes at all, but sat with a small tape recorder on his desk. The result was that of all the students in the room, Bucky was the only one who never took his eyes off Natasha. The effect was quite disarming, partly due to the intensity of his gaze and his alarming habit of staring without blinking. Clint began to see why Natasha had been concerned. Honestly, he couldn’t tell whether Bucky was interested in Natasha sexually or not, or she in him, but one thing was abundantly clear. If there was any attraction there, there was absolutely nothing Clint could do about it, and they’d have to sort it out for themselves. Natasha was perfectly capable of handling this without anyone else’s help.

At the end of the lecture he gave Natasha a wink, and slipped out as several students started to quiz her about their next assignment. He headed back to his office via the photocopier room, where he discovered Pepper.

“Christmas party,” she said, by way of greeting and explanation for the papers littering the floor.

“I see that,” said Clint.

“I, er, may have overstepped my bounds a little and added you and a plus one to the guest list.” Pepper looked a little embarrassed, but only a little. “Since you didn’t RSVP to the invite.”

“Does everyone here discuss my private life?” asked Clint in exasperation.

“We don’t need to, we get the weekly bulletin,” Pepper replied calmly.

Clint sighed and helped her pick up the paperwork.

“Honestly, I’d kind of forgotten about that. It’s next week, right?”

“This week,” Pepper corrected. “Sunday, actually.”

They glowered at each other.

“Yes, I know Sunday’s a crappy day for an office party,” said Pepper. “You don’t need to tell me that, I’ve had everyone else going on about it. But it’s the only day Thor can make it, and even then, it’s a special favour.”

“Yeah, okay, I guess,” said Clint. He shrugged.

“The minibus will be outside your building at five, which should still give you plenty of day to call your own. I’m assuming that Phil will be with you and we don’t need to make another stop en route.” Pepper’s words were framed as a polite order. He nodded.

“Okay,” said Clint. “I’ll let him know.”

In all probability, Phil would probably be really up for the office Christmas party, since Pepper had quite literally organized a piss up in a brewery, and the brewery just happened to be owned by Thor and Phil knew nearly everyone who was attending.

“Fine,” said Pepper, finishing her photocopying and stacking her papers.

Clint set the photocopier running with his handouts for the following day, and sent Phil a message while he watched the stacks of paper being collated. The reply was nearly instantaneous: yes, he’d love to go, and he already knew about the party because Steve had mentioned it to him a couple of weeks previously. Because of course Steve had.

Wednesday was now one of the few days that Clint went home to an empty apartment, so he got his head down to some serious work and stayed late. He sent out emails to his colleagues about the schools they’d be working with for the Egg Race, with some information about the sort of things they’d need to cover when they met the representatives of their respective schools the following week. He sent the schools information to help them deal with the university’s requirements. He also contacted the PhD students about their availability to help out, finished a good first draft of the script for his podcast, then finally listened to the one that Stark had made some years before. In odd minutes, he played around with the materials for the water clock he planned to demonstrate to the class on Friday. All in all, he was feeling quite pleased with himself by the time he packed up and headed for his car.

He felt restless, but it was too late to go home, collect his bow and then spend time at the range. Despondently, he decided that he should probably start his Christmas shopping, since there were only two weeks until Christmas and any time spent doing that tonight meant extra time in bed with Phil at the weekend. He was sitting in his car trying to decide which route to take to the mall when a strange figure walked out of the shadows, two men with clipboards trailing after him. The skin on the back of Clint’s neck prickled as he sensed trouble. He called Pepper.

She answered on the third ring and sounded pleased to hear from him. “Hi Clint, what can I do for you?”

“Hi, Pepper. Is there any kind of building work going on in the History department at the moment? Any kind of structural evaluation?”

Pepper’s tone changed instantly. “No, why?”

“Because I’m sitting in the car park and I can see three men heading towards the school. One of them’s kind of thin with shoulder-length dark hair and a dark suit, and the other two are young, kind of ordinary-looking, and are carrying clipboards.”

“Right, okay. Do you think you might recognise any of them?”

“It’s too dark to see them properly. Just a minute, let me go hands-free.” He fiddled with his phone, then started his engine and turned on his headlights. Clint was very satisfied to see the men all looking startled, then staring towards his car as if trying to work out who was driving it. “I think it’s that Lauffeson guy from the Business School.”

“Thank you, Clint.” Pepper’s voice now sounded icy.

“What should I do?”

“Nothing. I’ll take it from here. You have a good night.”

“Okay, if you’re sure,” said Clint.

“I’m sure,” said Pepper, and ended the call.

“Huh,” said Clint. He watched as the men continued into the building, then headed towards the mall.

Even this late in the evening, the mall was a hellish place to be. Clint would have turned tail and legged it out of there if it hadn’t been for the knowledge that he probably had only one or two other opportunities to buy Phil something without Phil actually being there. He wandered round in a daze, grabbing himself a burger on the way until it suddenly dawned on him that if he was staying at Phil’s sister’s for Christmas, he had another four people to buy for. Not really knowing any of them, he decided that Megan might like something to pamper herself with (safe, boring, yeah alright), and he went for the predictable bath stuff. He’d seen Emma playing with a dinosaur and also knew she liked soccer, so that present was easy. Hayley had been out at Karate, so he took a chance on a voucher for a sportswear shop, and Pippa had been doing her homework (apparently), and so he gambled on a book token, along with some fun stickers he’d seen while at the checkout. He thought that pretty much covered a range of options, and if they didn’t like their own presents they might be persuaded to swap with each other. Phil was a whole other matter. Clint started out with another boring gift; a new tie, but then he saw a coffee merchant that sold coffee hampers and assorted coffee gadgets, and he knew that he’d found the right present. On the way out of the mall he passed a shop selling a range of ornaments and assorted knick-knacks, so he backtracked and brought Bruce a new penguin. Natasha’s vodka could wait until his next grocery shop.

He felt pleased with himself by the time he arrived home, but as he put the presents somewhere Phil wouldn’t find them, the apartment felt too quiet and somehow colder than it should have done. It was late, but he texted Phil anyway, letting him know that he’d love to spend Christmas at his sister’s. He was just drifting off to sleep when Phil’s reply came back, Phil obviously also half-asleep: just a few words that somehow conveyed deep happiness and love. It was a lot easier to sleep soundly after that.

First thing Thursday morning, Steve stormed into his office, trailing Tony in his wake. Every inch of Steve’s body displayed controlled fury, and he radiated an air of someone seeking justice for a perceived wrong. Behind him, Tony cowered slightly in the doorway, looking deeply ashamed.

“I’ve just seen your email,” said Steve, gritting his teeth.

“Which one?” said Clint.

“The Egg Race email you’ve cc’d to everyone apart from me.” Steve crossed his arms as if expecting Clint to deny it, then almost immediately uncrossed them again in order to use them to help make his point. “I thought this was a community event?” Steve snapped at both of them. “I mean, I can see why you’ve involved the schools – you want to include everyone who might apply to the university. Fine. But we agreed, Clint. We agreed that this was a community event and we wanted – no, we needed the help and support of the whole community. The whole community.”

“Yes?” said Clint.

“Well, the Community College, Clint. The Community College is the whole goddamn community.”

Realisation dawned. Clint could see that Steve had accurately read his expression and they both relaxed slightly.

Steve continued. “You may think we’re ‘just an art college’ but that’s not all we do. We get the kids whose grades would never get them into a university. We get the kids who can only afford to be on a short course. And we get the asylum seekers, the adult learners, and the kids with learning disabilities. In short, Clint, we get everyone that gets left out of everything else, and I for one am not going to let them get left out this time.”

The room fell silent and Clint now started to feel the growing sense of shame so obviously felt by Tony. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Steve turned back to face Tony.

“I thought you’d have my back, Tony,” he said, obviously not finished with him. “You should have said something before it got to this stage.” With that, Steve walked out, leaving Clint and Tony in silence.

“I’ll fix it,” said Clint.

After that, Clint had what could best be described as a shit-storm of a day where he tried to sort things out in addition to doing his usual work. The day ended with an hour-long evening seminar given by a visiting scholar, during which Clint pretended to take notes while actually working on his tablet, all the while being watched by Tony Stark, who occasionally nodded approvingly.

It was after eight o’clock when Clint finally arrived at Phil’s house, and he rested his head momentarily on the cool wood of the door while waiting for Phil to answer his doorbell.

“Oh, this won’t do,” said Phil, seeing Clint’s face and stepping back to let him in. Clint closed the door and took off his coat, and when he turned back to Phil he noticed that Phil was holding out his hand, a key gripped between his fingers. “I think it’s about time you had one of these,” he said, and dropped the key into Clint’s outstretched hand.

Before Clint could say anything, Phil turned on his heels and walked through to the kitchen, from which, Clint now realised, some wonderful smells were emanating. Clint was hit by a hot flush of emotion as the stress of the day flooded out of him and he felt like he was somewhere he belonged. He followed Phil through into the kitchen and saw him placing a baking tray into the stove.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” said Phil, “It’s only something out of a packet.”

“Hey, I’m not complaining,” said Clint, stepping into Phil’s personal space and hugging him from behind. “Something out of a packet is my favourite.” Phil, a little bemused, closed the oven door and clasped Clint’s arm: the closest he could get to hugging him back.

“Is everything alright?” said Phil.

“Yeah,” said Clint, nuzzling into the crook of Phil’s neck. “Hell of a day. You smell nice.”

Phil chuckled, turned in Clint’s arms and mussed his hair. “Weirdo,” he said. “I probably smell of stale sweat and uncooked ready meals.”

“Thanks for the key,” said Clint.

“My pleasure.”

“Can you put dinner on timer? There’s something else I’d really like to do before we eat.”

Phil looked at Clint’s tired, needy face. He wordlessly reached over to the stove and changed the settings so their dinner wouldn’t be ready for another hour, then led him out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the bedroom.

Phil switched on the bedside light to give the room a warm glow, then started to unbutton Clint’s shirt. He leaned forward and possessively kissed Clint on the lips and Clint’s tongue flickered out and swiped at Phil’s lower lip in return.

“This is going to take forever if we do it this way,” Phil grumbled against Clint’s mouth as he yanked at Clint’s shirt.

Clint laughed as he tried to kiss Phil again and Phil darted back to take his own shirt off.

“Strip, Barton,” Phil said, as he hopped around on one foot, trying to get a shoe off without untying the laces.

Clint laughed louder as Phil hopped sideways and collided with the bed.

Phil was first under the covers, Clint sliding in after him and spooning up against his back. Limpet-like, Clint threw an arm around Phil, then hooked his leg over, sliding an icy cold foot down Phil’s shin as he did so.

“Oh, so that’s how it is?” said Phil, twisting round to face Clint, then running his hands down to Clint’s abs where they stayed, caressed and then – tickled.

“Oh, so that’s how it is?” Clint answered back, pushing against Phil’s shoulders until Clint was on top, lying between Phil’s open legs. Phil’s breath caught in his throat as Clint’s cock rubbed against his.

“Let’s do it this way,” said Clint, leaning in and capturing Phil’s mouth with his own. Cupping Phil’s shoulders but with his weight balanced on his elbows, Clint rubbed gently against him, teasing him. Phil wordlessly found the lubricant, squeezed out a generous portion and moved his hand between them, but instead of taking both their cocks in his fist, he stroked them both, with delicate, feather-like strokes.

Clint purred into his mouth and kept up the gentle rocking motion for long, long minutes, the only sounds their breathing and the rustling of the covers. The tension built slowly between them until eventually, Phil tensed under him and came. As Phil looked up at Clint, dazed and content, Clint shifted his balance until he was braced by one elbow against the mattress. He used his other hand to finish himself off, coming in long stripes across Phil’s stomach while Phil eyed his sweaty arms and cock hungrily.

Some time later, while they were eating their dinner and playing footsie under the table, Phil’s expression became thoughtful. “So, I had some interesting emails today,” he said.

“Oh yes?” said Clint.

“One from you, with all the info for that competition next year.”

“Uh-huh.”

“One from Pepper, wondering if I’d like to squire you round a brewery on Sunday evening for your Christmas party – to which the answer is of course, yes.”

“Okay.”

“And one from Tony Stark, which included the ‘rider’ for the ‘gig’ he’ll be playing at our school.” Phil’s fingers darted out to make air quotes.

“Oh, he emailed, did he?” said Clint.

Phil shrugged, “I mean, I kind of knew about most of this stuff in advance, but what do you want me to do with Tony?”

Clint’s smile grew mischievous. “Anything you like. Within reason. I mean, you’ve met the guy. Just don’t put up with any of his nonsense.”

“Which is, I assume, why I’ve been allocated him rather than any other school.”

“Well,” Clint shrugged, “There is that. But it’s also his competition, and he is insanely good at what he does. The problem is, he knows it.”

“Okay,” said Phil. “So just treat him like I’d treat any other teacher.”

“Yup, that’s about the size of it. He’ll hate that.”

Phil smiled. “And don’t give in to his requests for... what was it? Amongst other things, ‘a life-size inflatable Steve Rogers, four gallons of olive oil, and a bathtub full of brown M&Ms.’”

“Precisely,” said Clint.


	12. Christmas Cheers

In retrospect, demonstrating a water-clock to three separate freshman classes outside in the courtyard in the second week of December maybe wasn’t one of Clint’s finest ideas. It meant that by lunchtime he was both soaked and frozen, but the demonstration itself was a success, even if there was now a rather suspicious patch of black ice in the corner of the courtyard.

The premise itself was simple. Take two large containers and make a small hole in one, very low down on the side. Place the container with a hole so that it drains into the other container. When the water has drained away, X minutes have elapsed, depending on the size of the hole and size of the container. With his stop-watch, Clint had been able to calculate that with his bottles, half a litre drained away in about forty seconds. With a marker pen he’d made a line to indicate where the bottles would need to be filled to for it to take five minutes for the water to drain away.

The first thing that usually happened when Clint did this demonstration was a general feeling from the class of ‘what, was that it?’ Clint could then usually spin this five minute demonstration out into an hour-long discussion of ‘time-keeping’ problems such as how to work out what size hole to make, how to work out how long a minute – or an hour – was in the first place, and, if you had a particularly anal student in the mix, what to do about evaporation in hot climates.

He was congratulating himself on a morning well-spent until he passed Tony Stark’s senior History of Science class and noticed that Tony’s water clock was an elaborate confection in which curved pipes channelled water into buckets until the combined weight of the buckets triggered the upward motion of a lead ball, which first tripped a switch to stop the flow of water, and then swung against a gong, signalling the end of class.

Clint was never going to master that kind of prima donna-type showmanship. Thank god.

The weekend passed in a haze of work and preparations for Christmas until at five minutes to five on Sunday evening, Clint and Phil were standing on the sidewalk outside Clint’s building, waiting for the minibus to take them to the brewery. Naturally, the bus was ten minutes late.

As Clint settled himself in his seat, Fury passed him a hip-flask full of Scotch, which pretty much set the tone for the rest of the evening.

Darcy met them at the Visitor’s entrance, decked from head to toe in an outfit apparently made from ribbons, scraps of plastic, wrapping paper, and faux fur. She eyed Clint’s scruffy but warm clothes critically. “You look like a hobo,” she said conversationally. “You’re not going to make my life difficult, are you Biceps?”

“No. Not unless you haven’t got any beer. And nice outfit, Darce,” said Clint.

“Yeah, I know, right? I’m the Ghost of Christmas Presents.” She grinned, and Clint groaned. “Come on through, everybody.”

As the reception area filled up with the staff of the History department and their guests, Darcy walked towards the door leading to the brewery and gestured that they should follow her.

Thor was waiting for them inside, talking to two people in white coats. As the group approached him, he announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honour to introduce the scientists who formulate my remarkable ales, doctors Selvig and Foster.”

Some of the group clapped at this, because it seemed appropriate. Selvig looked pleased, but Foster simply rolled her eyes and said in a whisper that carried to the rest of the room, “can I go now?”

“Yes, dear. I’ll see you later,” said Thor, leaning over to kiss her lightly on the cheek.

“Well, don’t forget to clean up,” said Dr Foster. “And don’t try to make Darcy do it. You know what happened last time.”

“I am aware,” said Thor. He looked a little disconcerted, but rallied quickly. “Please, everyone, follow me for the tour,” he added.

Clint looked around to see if he could see Darcy, but she had vanished. Before he could work out where she’d gone, Thor started their tour of the premises, giving them a potted history of his brewery as he did so. Fair play to the man, he was justifiably proud of the business he’d built up from nothing, however, by the end of the tour several people were wondering when they were going to get to the actual party. Privately, as much as Clint liked beer, he thought that if he’d wanted a history lecture, he would have stayed at work.

Eventually, other smells started to assert themselves over the smell of malt, hops and machinery. Thor led them through into his conference room, where hot and cold dishes were laid out on the large table as a buffet. The room also contained a full bar.

“Now that’s more like it,” said Tony from somewhere behind Clint. He squeezed past him to get into the room.

Bruce looked at the spread with a miserable expression. As everyone else dug into the dishes on offer, they realised Thor’s lecture wasn’t over. He gave a running commentary on the composition and preparation of his lager pancakes, beer blinis, steak and ale pies, ‘beer butt chicken’, chilli (with stout), trappist beer bratwurst, Chinese vegetables in a light beer batter, Boston Lager cupcakes and (shudder) banana beer sundaes. As Bruce edged sideways to investigate the green salad that no one else seemed interested in, Thor appeared at his shoulder and told him with pride about the special variety of hops it contained.

Naturally, once people started to drink, they also started to relax.

“Clint!” said Darcy, and he turned to see that she was now working the bar. “Try this. You’ll like it.”

He walked over and took the glass from her and sipped it thoughtfully. “Nice.” He nodded. It was free beer. Of course he was going to like it.

“Criminal, right?” said Darcy. “My one day off and I’m tending bar.”

“It’s alright, sweetcheeks, I’ve got a big tip for you,” said Tony, appearing next to Clint.

Darcy refused to comment on that, instead reaching under the bar for an unlabelled bottle that she placed on the bar in front of Tony. It sat there, its black glass scratched, dull and vaguely threatening.

Tony stared at it. “Oh, I get it,” he said. “It’s like the alcoholic version of Schrodinger’s Cat.”

“Maybe,” said Darcy, raising an eyebrow. She left Tony to make up his mind. He picked up the bottle and walked away with it, a thoughtful expression on his face.

“This is great, Darce,” said Clint.

“Well, in that case, have another,” she said.

Clint started to relax. It was great to get away from work and the usual routine of going to Thor’s bar, even if the alternative was going to Thor’s brewery with a bunch of people from work. The only downer was that every ten minutes or so, a member of staff would collar him to discuss work issues.

The next time Clint bumped into Tony was over an hour later. Tony was moderately drunk and trying not to show it. He threw his arms around Clint and Phil, complained to Phil about working with Clint, then turned and complained to Clint that he’d have to work with Phil. “But it’s my race!” he whined, sagging between them and letting them support his weight. “I shouldn’t have to do any work, I’m the figurehead.” He pouted, sticking out his jaw to illustrate what a great figurehead he was, then turned and kissed Phil soundly on the cheek.

“You smell of bratwurst,” said Phil.

“Yeah, I know. Great, right?” said Tony. “I’m celebrating.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, we’ve got the first episode of my next series in the can. Plus, some extra stuff. Voicey stuff. Which, fitting in around classes, is no mean feat.”

“Congrats,” said Clint.

“Yeah, congratulations,” said Phil.

Tony squinted at Phil. “I’m going to be taller than you on screen. Just so you know,” he said, and sauntered off.

Phil stared after Tony, eyebrows raised.

“So, how you going to explain that to your niece?” Clint asked. “When she finds out you’re going to be on TV with ‘the man who jumps on stuff’?”

“With as much tact as possible,” said Phil.

“Maybe you should invite them down to stay the week of the race.”

Phil looked pained. “Just before the exams? It’ll be chaos.”

Over to one side, Clint noticed Pepper deep in conversation with the Dean, Maria. “I’ve just remembered something,” he said, and walked towards them. Phil followed.

“Hi,” said Clint. “Am I interrupting?”

“Not at all,” said Pepper, “having fun?”

“Yeah,” said Clint. “Can I ask you about Thursday night?”

Pepper and Maria exchanged glances, which Clint assumed meant that they had just been talking about this.

“What’s this?” said Phil.

“I forgot to mention,” said Clint, shrugging. “I saw some guys hanging around the university.”

“Clint witnessed the beloved head of the Business School and some of his associates apparently assessing the premises late last Thursday.”

“With clipboards,” said Maria.

“Ah, clipboards,” said Phil. “The universal symbol of the evil genius.”

Maria raised an eyebrow, her expression arch.

“Yes, well,” said Pepper. “As you’re aware, we’re currently having a run-in with the Business and Economics Schools and certain factions on the board of directors who want to make the university a ‘specialist college’.” Pepper enunciated ‘specialist’ using the tone she might otherwise use to discuss genital warts. Other people in the room, on overhearing her topic of conversation, started to gravitate towards her.

“Lauffeson and his cronies have been cultivating a sponsorship deal with a social media company, with a view to using this as leverage to build their department and squeeze us out of the university,” said Pepper.

Darcy chose that moment to appear in the mix, carrying a tray laden down with drinks, which soon vanished. It gave her an excuse to join them.

“And the other night?” asked Phil.

Pepper’s face became unreadable. “I have it on good authority that on Thursday, Lauffeson attempted to sell our building – or at least, sell the concept of re-purposing our building – as part of his new university.”

“And?” said Clint. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Natasha nod slightly.

“And it’s not fit for purpose, apparently.” Pepper was distinctly cheerful in announcing this. She took a sip of her drink and smiled. “Our building isn’t big enough for what this company intended. And it’d need a complete refurb and rewiring, which they’re not prepared to pay for. Additionally, this company isn’t willing to provide sufficient capital to build a whole new block, and Business, Economics and whoever else they can find to back their plans don’t have enough money up-front to do it either.”

“Which presumably means that...” said Tony.

“That currently, the scheme to close down the History department is on hold.”

“Yes!” said Tony.

“Is that it? It’s as simple as that?” said Clint.

“No,” said Pepper. “More drinks please, Darcy.” Darcy scuttled off to comply. “No, it’s not as simple as that.”

“Go ahead, you may as well tell everyone,” said Maria.

“I was going to leave this until our next staff meeting but what the hell. Seeing as we’re all here,” said Pepper. “Yes, there were problems with the size of the building, but that, it appears was the final nail in the coffin. It appears that Lauffeson’s business model has also run into certain legal... issues. He was hoping to offer courses in targeted marketing through social media, data mining, developing businesses using crowd sourcing, that kind of thing. But the way things stand, he can’t do it.”

“He can’t?” said Steve. “I’m sorry, this isn’t really my area.”

“Okay,” said Pepper, “Lauffeson wanted to offer specific types of courses that involved analysing personal information, the sort of public ‘personal’ information that everyone has on the web. He wanted to set up courses where someone could, say, write an essay based on information they’d found out about people online, describing how they’d analyse it and what they could use this data for.”

“But that’s illegal, surely?” said Phil.

“Yes and no. It’s ethically dubious, at the very least. It’s a business growth area, and the law’s struggling to catch up. Worse than that, the laws are different depending on the country you’re in. And that’s part of the problem. It’s not illegal to look at these publically-available ‘personal details’, but with social media sites, it isn’t always obvious what information you can see and what everyone else can see – if you’re someone’s friend, for instance. Couple that with frequent changes in privacy policy by social media sites, and the notion that even if you change your profile, someone who has already ‘mined’ that data has a copy of it, well. You can start to see the problem.”

“Don’t even get me started on the whole misuse of photos thing,” said Tony, obviously speaking from experience.

“Precisely,” said Pepper. “Anyway, if he wanted to use this data – upload documents containing that information to the university servers, publish any of this research, he’d have to anonymise it first, at which point, it becomes effectively useless for his purposes.”

“So... is that it?” said Steve. “What does this mean?”

Darcy arrived back with fresh drinks, and edged her way back into the crowd.

“It means that Lauffeson can’t run these sorts of courses unless he wants a huge lawsuit on his hands,” said Pepper.

“Unless,” said Maria, although her voice was nearly drowned out by the collective murmurs from the crowd, “he sets up a large database of dummy data – fake people. But that will take time and money.” 

“It means that the current plans to take over the History department are effectively dead in the water,” said Pepper.

There was a collective cry of ‘yes’ from almost everyone there.

“So, we’re safe,” said Steve.

“For now,” said Maria. Then, as the chatter among the group grew louder and louder, she repeated, “For now. For the next academic year, we’re safe.”

The collective cheers grew louder as people made toasts and congratulated each other.

“He ran out of time, basically,” said Pepper, looking directly at Clint. “In order to be able to offer his new courses in the next academic year, he needed to have all his plans in place by the end of next week. And now it’s just not possible for him to do that. He might try again the following year, but for now, we’re safe.”

“Well done,” said Clint.

“I didn’t do anything,” said Pepper. She took a contemplative sip from her drink as the crowd around her started to move away. Natasha edged closer.

“So?” said Clint.

“So?” said Pepper.

“How did you do it? How did you find out?”

Maria chuckled evilly and wandered off in the direction of the bar.

“What do you remember about my previous job?” said Pepper.

“You were part of the School of Music,” said Clint immediately.

“I was Head of the School of Music,” said Pepper. “And the School of Music is now the School of Business.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow slightly, waiting for Clint to figure it out.

Pepper gave a light, self-deprecating laugh. “My office is now Lauffeson’s office. And...”

“You still have a key to your office,” said Clint, filling in the blanks.

“Actually, I still have keys to the entire building,” said Pepper, “though I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention that to anyone.”

“There’s lucky,” said Phil. “I assume he had the paperwork on his desk?”

“Some of it,” said Pepper. “He didn’t anonymise his data,” she added in a low whisper.

How Pepper had managed to get the information off of Lauffeson’s computer remained unsaid, but Natasha looked decidedly smug.

Clint was hanging off of a bar stool about an hour later when a frazzled-looking Thor drifted into the room, took one look at the scene, and drifted out again.

“I think that’s our cue,” said Darcy. “You guys have nearly drunk us dry anyways.”

Clint sneaked a look at his watch and couldn’t work out why he could only see one hand. Eventually he worked out that it was five minutes to eleven.

“Folks, your coach is about to leave,” Darcy shouted to the crowd. “If you want to get home tonight, I recommend that you get on it. Follow the enormous hairy Norwegian, he’ll show you the way out.”

As the rest of the crowd slowly filtered out, Tony looked longingly at the chicken leg in his hand, then offered it to Steve as if expecting him to carry it for him.

“That means you, grandpa,” Darcy yelled in his direction. “Don’t make me turn out the lights.”

“Please, don’t turn out the lights,” said Bruce. “Trust me. You don’t want to know what he’ll do.”

“Chicken or a goose?” slurred Tony.


	13. Half a Dozen New Beginnings

Clint started his Monday bleary-eyed, hungover and anxious. A pencil-thin youth showed Clint into the media suite shortly before nine AM, and he sat with his head in his hands until a voice from the computer reminded him to put the headphones on. He stuttered his way through his podcast and felt even more hung over by the time he was finished. Classes went by in a daze, and at five o’clock he was in his car and heading for Sheldon High School, where he was due to meet Mrs Hoskins to discuss their outreach programme for the next few months and the tentative plans for the Egg Race at the end of the academic year. He took the wrong turn three times and eventually arrived fifteen minutes late, where he was greeted by a short, grey-haired woman in a grey suit, who sat looking impassively at him over her grey desk, while lamps outside made the slushy fresh snow look grey and uninviting. He worked hard to convey what his department could do for her students, but Hoskins appeared convinced that everything he suggested was going to involve more effort than it was actually worth. All in all, Clint felt completely justified in ending the day in Thor’s bar.

It seemed like the entire university was in the bar that night. Students were tumbling out onto the street as he pulled into the parking lot, and Darcy’s face when he entered the bar said it all. But just in case anyone couldn’t interpret her face, she was also being pretty vocal. He brushed his head on the storm of festive decorations hanging from the ceiling on his way to the bar, then spent two hours staring at his drink while his equally despondent and exhausted colleagues did the same.

On Tuesday, Clint delivered the final lectures for the year for History 101, and watched the fifty or so students that had actually turned up gaze in incomprehension at the PowerPoint presentation displayed on the screen behind him. With no more lessons left to plan for the year, he spent most of the afternoon on the manuscript for his book; then, feeling he could delay the inevitable no longer, sent it off to a prospective publisher.

On Wednesday, he had a rather cryptic email from Fury about his experiences with the kids at Kalamette Charter School, the school Fury would be working with for the Egg Race. He spent the best part of an hour firing emails back and forth before Fury admitted that his main problem was that a student had apparently tried to bite him. He contemplated switching schools with Fury. As he was trying to decide whether to head home, he had a series of messages from Stark that went something like this:

IronDuke: You’re not trending.

BartoC: You what?

IronDuke: Mr Popularity you’re not.

BartoC: Miss Congeniality you’re not. Also, what the fuck?

IronDuke: You’re podcast, genius. Not bad, by the way. For a virgin. But seriously, get on Twitter.

BartoC: Because I need to spend more of my life sending pointless messages?

IronDuke: Be the change you want to see. Pimp it, Barton.

BartoC: No.

IronDuke: Seriously, pimp the podcast, pimp the school. Sell that ass.

BartoC: Seriously? Go tweet yourself.

BartoC: Has left the conversation.

On Thursday, Clint was filling his office hour by practicing his juggling when Bruce paid a visit.

“Hey,” Bruce said, closing the door behind him and stretching out in Clint’s office chair.

“Hi,” said Clint, dropping the balls onto the desk. “What can I do for you?”

Bruce scrubbed a hand through the hair at the back of his head. “Do you remember mentioning something about meeting up over Christmas?”

“Oh yeah, about that,” said Clint, suddenly remembering.

“Well actually...” said Bruce.

They smiled at each other.

“You first,” said Clint.

“I’ve, er, changed my plans? I’ve been invited to stay with a friend.” Much to Clint’s surprise, Bruce started to blush.

“Friend?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, friends are good.” Clint eyed Bruce carefully, watching the blush spread from Bruce’s reddening ears across his face. Any fool could see that ‘friend’ was a euphemism, but the man deserved his privacy, so Clint didn’t push for an explanation. “Really good,” said Clint, and when Bruce met his gaze again their smiles became broader.

“Actually, my plans have changed as well,” admitted Clint. “I’m going to be staying with Phil at his sister’s.”

“Wow, that’s a big deal,” said Bruce. “Meet the family, huh?”

“Tell me about it. He’s got three nieces.”

“Oh, ouch,” said Bruce. “Well, good luck. What’s he getting them for Christmas?”

“Er, I don’t know,” said Clint. “We haven’t really talked about it.” Clint suddenly realised that there were several conversations that he and Phil should probably have had on the subject.

Bruce raised an eyebrow.

“I’ll check,” said Clint. “And actually, while we’re on the subject of presents, I’ve got something for you.” Clint reached into his desk drawer and passed Bruce a paper bag containing the ornament he’d brought at the mall a week or so before.

Bruce took the bag with some trepidation, but his expression became one of pleasure when he opened the bag and took out ‘The Great Penguini – Fortune-telling penguin novelty for children aged eight and up’. Bruce chuckled and turned the package this way and that, before finally giving in and taking the penguin out of the packet.

“Thanks, Clint,” said Bruce.

“I think the fortune-telling thing is the card on the back of the packet. You spin the penguin and he points to an answer, apparently.”

“Ah, okay.” Bruce held the penguin in one hand and the packet in the other. The packet had a circle printed on the back, divided into eighths, with a different ‘fortune’ in each segment. “I’ll save the wrapper.”

“I think the guy who translated the text on the packet may have been on something.”

“Oh, yeah, I see,” said Bruce. “male a wish.”

“I think that one’s supposed to be ‘make a wish’.”

“And ‘you are growing on an adventure.’”

“Yeah,” said Clint.

“Well, I always grow on my adventures,” said Bruce, raising an eyebrow. “Thanks, Clint. I’ll add him to the nativity scene. He can be one of the wise men.”

“Gold, frankincense, myrrh and novelty fortunes? Sounds okay to me.”

“Yeah. How could the baby Jesus not want to ‘meet a tall duck and handsome strangler’?

Clint was still chuckling as Bruce left. As soon as the door closed, he called Phil.

“Hi, Clint,” said Phil, obviously pleased to hear from him. “No Empires today?”

“Lesson prep,” said Clint. “Can you talk?”

“For ten minutes. What’s up?”

“About Christmas.”

“Oh, I thought we’d set off early on Tuesday. It shouldn’t take much more than eight hours, even with a break for lunch. Anyway, we can talk about this later.”

“Not that,” said Clint. “About presents for your sister and the kids.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. I’ve got them.”

“What now?”

“I, er, bought them a while back. They’re in my office somewhere...” Phil’s voice tailed off, and Clint guessed that Phil was looking round his office, trying to remember where he put them. “Actually, they’re not wrapped yet, so I guess I should do that. You want me to put your name on the labels, so they’re from both of us?”

Clint’s heart thudded in his chest at the same time as he stumbled over his words. “I, er,” he said.

“I mean, if you don’t want to, that’s alright too,” said Phil on the other end of the line.

“That’s not it,” said Clint. “I, er, already got them stuff.”

“You did?” Phil sounded impossibly pleased at that.

“I mean, they might be rubbish.”

“Clint, I’m sure they’ll love them.”

There was silence at both ends of the line for a few seconds.

“You want me to put your name on the tags too?”

“I dunno. What do you think?”

“Clint,” said Phil.

“Okay, if you want. Yeah,” said Clint.

He spent the rest of the day being alternately very pleased and very nervous at the prospect of Christmas, and when he tumbled into Phil’s arms later that evening he held him like he never wanted to let go.

Before Clint knew it, term was over and he was turning off the light in his office, locking up and heading home. The next couple of days passed in a similar daze: Christmas preparations, stolen half-hours here and there where he got to talk to Phil, and a maddening weekend where Phil had to work but Clint was left cooling his heels at the archery range.

On Tuesday morning, Clint opened his curtains to snow starting to fall in lazy fat flakes against his window. His phone beeped from the nightstand – a message to let him know that Phil was paranoid about the weather and was already on his way over. Clint showered, grabbed some toast and filled a travel mug with coffee. Fifteen minutes later he was locking up; standing at the kerb with one bag full of clothes and another full of Christmas presents as Phil’s car skidded slowly to a halt next to him.

“You don’t need to look so worried,” said Phil, stowing Clint’s bags in the trunk next to his own bag and a box full of gaily-wrapped packages.

“I’m not worried,” said Clint, as he trailed Phil back to the front of the car and got in the passenger side.

“Huh,” said Phil, raising an eyebrow.

“Okay, I am a bit,” admitted Clint. “Families, you know. I don’t really have that much experience.”

“It’s okay,” said Phil, reaching over and patting Clint on the knee. “They’re going to love you. Look, if you want, I can tell you exactly how this will go.” Phil turned the car onto the main road, took a look up at the grey sky and flicked the wipers back on.

“Okay,” said Clint, settling back into his seat and watching the snow fall thick and fast now as they made their way towards the highway.

Phil smiled. “Okay, so. We’ll get there and my sister will drag you in, feed you and give you several beers. The nieces will make a lot of noise – once they stop pretending to be on their best behaviour. I can pretty much guarantee that by time we go to bed, there will be a competition to decide which one of them you like best.”

“Okay.” Clint chuckled quietly to himself.

“Oh, they’ll be subtle about it, maybe,” said Phil, his eyes twinkling. “On Christmas Eve, the girls will run around like maniacs some more, argue over what to watch on TV, and chat with their friends. Some time after lunch, my sister will realise that there’s something she’s forgotten to buy for Christmas dinner, and send us out for it. We’ll go out to get it, and when we return, we’ll be rewarded with more food and beer. Some time in the evening, her dead-beat ex will call and try to speak to all of the kids. That will probably be the worst part of the holiday. The kids need to talk to him, but not for too long, because it all gets difficult and for some reason he can’t get his head around the fact that parenting isn’t a supposed to be a competition. Or something you only do on public holidays. Anyway.”

Clint looked over at Phil, watched him scrunch his face up in anticipation of that particular conversation.

“Then, we’ll probably play some sort of game to wind down,” said Phil. “Put everyone in a good mood before bed. No one will sleep all that well of course, then we’ll get up at some ungodly hour when I’d really rather be in bed with you, and open presents while finding out, for about the millionth time, how the Grinch Stole Christmas.”

Clint chuckled. “It’s traditional.”

Phil shrugged. “Then we’ll eat too much again, watch more TV, eat again, and generally sink into an alcoholic stupor while the kids slowly break their presents and run out of energy while screaming at each other.” He paused. “That, too, is traditional. Another day or so of that, and we’ll be back on the road again. And that’s it.”

“Okay, well that doesn’t sound too bad,” said Clint.

“It’s not,” said Phil. “So stop worrying.” He reached over to pat Clint’s knee again. “I love you, you know.”

“Love you too,” said Clint.

Two days later, late on Christmas night and lying in bed in Phil’s arms at his sister’s house, Clint had to concede that Phil was right.

“They love you,” Phil whispered into Clint’s hair. Clint’s throat felt tight and he couldn’t get the words he wanted to say out. He looked over Phil’s shoulder at the stack of presents that he had been given; at the room they had specially decorated for them both, then back to Phil, the most important gift he’d been given this year. He hadn’t known it could be like this: that his feelings would keep growing, keep getting deeper, stronger; that the longer they spent together, the less he’d want them to be apart.

Phil leaned towards him and licked at Clint’s lower lip before sealing his mouth to Clint’s and drawing him into a deep and spine-tingling kiss. When they finally broke apart, Phil was leaning over him, lying casually between Clint’s legs. Phil smiled at him then, and moved to nuzzle against the skin of Clint’s collarbones.

“I’m not sure I can...” Clint said, voice trailing off.

“May I remind you,” said Phil, voice muffled against his skin, “that the condoms were a present from my sister, her exact words being, ‘it’s about time someone tried out that mattress’.”

“And may I remind you,” Clint whispered back, “that you are lying on about six pounds of Christmas dinner.”


	14. Casualties of Christmas

The first week back at school in the New Year was another Reading Week: so, no lessons, just lots of prep work and lots of emails from students starting to grow anxious about the essays due in the following Monday. Most of the queries were fairly straightforward and simply involved Clint gritting his teeth and reminding them to check the course handbook. A few were a little more serious, and in these cases, Clint suggested a few solutions and offered to set up a meeting if that didn’t work out. One memorable email implied that the student hadn’t ever visited the library. Clint sat with his feet up on his desk, his laptop on his lap, and pounded through enough admin to make the average grown man weep. In odd moments, he drank deeply from his new coffee mug, turning it in his palms and thinking about how much his life had changed in the last year or so.

Mindie Tanner knocked on his office door shortly before lunch that Wednesday, her eyes red and puffy from rubbing, and about three questions away from a full-blown meltdown.

“Dr Barton?” she said, opening the door and poking her head into the room.

Clint took one look at her earnest face, swung his feet down off the desk and attempted to look professional. His laptop slid one way and the contents of his mug slid the other, but eventually he managed to wrangle them both onto his desk without spilling anything. “Mindie. What can I do for you?” he said.

“Can I... I mean, is it all right for me to talk about the essay?”

“Sure, come on in. But bear in mind that I can’t see your actual work, because the essays are blind-marked. If I see what you’ve written, I might be able to work out which essay is yours when I’m marking it.”

“Well, that won’t be a problem,” said Mindie, quietly.

“Right,” said Clint. “Well, sit down.”

Mindie sat in Clint’s guest chair and fidgeted nervously.

“How can I help?” asked Clint, when Mindie didn’t say anything.

“What happens if I don’t do this essay?” said Mindie.

“Well,” said Clint, keeping a level tone. “If you’ve got a legitimate reason, that’s taken into account, and if you don’t, it’s marked as zero, and your overall score for the year – which is an average of the essay marks and the exam – will be lower.”

“Right, okay.”

“What’s this about?” said Clint. “You did really well in your previous essay.”

Mindie sniffed and rubbed her nose against the back of her hand. “Yeah, but I haven’t even started this one.” Her sleeve slid back and Clint noticed a red mark, as if someone had violently twisted her wrist. He kept his gaze neutral as if he hadn’t seen anything.

“Okay,” said Clint. “Well, you’ve still got nearly five days. You can still write a good essay in five days.”

Mindie shrugged. “I guess.”

Clint looked hard at Mindie’s face. It was way too tired and wan for someone still in their teens. He guessed that she’d been working long hours in the family store for the entire Christmas period in addition to trying to get her college work done, and would in all probability continue to do so for the remainder of her degree, right up until and possibly after she’d found another job elsewhere.

“If you’ve got time, how about I get us a coffee, and you can talk me through your plan for the essay? I mean,” he shrugged, “what you’d write about if you had the time.”

“Okay, sure, I guess.”

Clint re-assessed the situation. “Or how about hot chocolate, maybe, rather than coffee? It’s from the machine, so it’s probably safer.”

Mindie smiled slightly and nodded.

Clint excused himself and jogged to the machine in the corridor. When he returned, Mindie had a notebook in her lap, and was furiously scratching something out.

“Here you go,” he said, and placed a cup of hot chocolate on his desk where she could reach it. He sat back down in his chair and tried to project an air of attentive friendliness.

Mindie took a deep breath, centred herself, then took a sip of her hot chocolate. Clint noted her posture; noted that she seemed to relax slightly as she regained a sense of control; noted again the ugly red mark on her wrist.

“So, the subject is measuring time and predicting the future, yeah?” said Mindie after a few moments.

“Yup,” said Clint.

“Right, so,” said Mindie, and proceeded to talk him through what aspect of this she wanted to write her essay on, then, when pressed, which books she thought she’d need to look at in order to do the work.

“That’s it,” said Clint, when she was done. “You’ve got it. You really don’t have anything to worry about.”

“Yeah, but I don’t have time,” said Mindie.

“Well, you have the rest of the day, right?” said Clint.

“Yeah, but I’m not going to get to the bit where I need the books until Sunday. And the library’s shut Sunday afternoon.”

“Well, and this is just a suggestion,” said Clint. “But since you know what books you need, you might need to try to do things in a different order. Go to the library now, make the notes you need, then when you get to that point, your notes will be waiting for you.”

Mindie mulled this over. “But it means I won’t have time to write the plan this afternoon. And what happens if I need more stuff from the library later? Or if I waste time making notes I don’t need when I could be writing?”

“It’s difficult, I know,” said Clint. “But I’ve heard your plan, and it sounds like you know what you’re doing.” He pursed his lips. “Look. Taking that chance now, and making the notes while you can... that’s got to be better than not having the notes at all, right?”

“Maybe.”

“Look, here’s the worst case scenario. You miss a few things out of the essay and you don’t get a great mark. I promise you, whatever mark you get is still going to be better than scoring zero.”

“I guess. Yeah.”

“You know it is,” said Clint. “Come on, I’ve got to go to the library myself. Why don’t you tag along?”

Mindie nodded slightly, and followed him out of the room.

He spent an hour in the library, up in the gallery digging out obscure journals. From his vantage point, he could spy on Mindie as she darted from one shelf to the next. He was sure that her essay would be just fine. What he was less sure about, however, was what to do about the mark on her arm.

When he returned to his office, Kate, another one of his students, was waiting outside.

“What up,” she said, her body language deliberately confrontational as she pushed herself up from her slouch against the wall. “I’ve got this.” She waved a piece of paper in Clint’s direction as he unlocked his office door and let them both in.

“So, the essay’s going to be late again,” said Kate. “I got the form in advance this time. It’s legit, look.”

Clint hadn’t actually seen Kate’s form last time, so the actual reason for the lateness of her essays was a surprise to him. Obviously, he didn’t show it.

“Surgery, okay,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Kate with a shrug. “You guys will go scheduling essays for the week after a holiday. I’m good and get the surgery done outside of term time. Just can’t write for another week is all.”

“Well, that looks okay,” said Clint, bluffing, since he’d never actually seen a medical exemption form before. The condition was Carpal Tunnel, apparently, although Kate bore no visible evidence of two recent surgeries. Since he wasn’t allowed to offer advice or comment, there was very little he could do except nod and smile as she pushed herself up out of her chair (putting weight on her ‘damaged’ wrist, he noticed), and left the room.

Clint sighed, thought about going back to his admin, then on a sudden impulse, left his office in search of Steve.

Since there were no classes this week, he really wasn’t expecting to find Steve in his office, but as it turned out, Steve had at least as much admin to get through as Clint did. Steve’s admin would always be more problematic than Clint’s as well, because Steve had the added distraction of Tony Stark.

Clint skidded to a halt beside Steve’s open door, hand raised about to knock.

“Just a little,” cajoled Tony, his voice reaching Clint from inside Steve’s office.

“How can I wear... that ‘a little’?” Steve’s voice wheedled back at him.

“For a little while,” Tony clarified. “No one’s watching. Apart from me, that is.” Tony ended the sentence with an awful, cheesy fake growl.

Clint knocked, and let himself into the room before the situation got even more embarrassing.

“You’re with me on this, though, aren’t you Clint?” said Tony, turning to greet him without a pause. Clint took a couple of seconds to register the awful red and white Christmas sweater Tony was wearing, the large red snowflake in the centre of Tony’s chest at least a distraction from the smugness of Tony’s expression.

Behind Tony, Steve waved his arms dramatically, and mouthed the word ‘no’.

“Good holiday?” said Clint, grasping for a change of subject.

“Yeah,” said Tony. “More après-ski than actual ski, if you get my meaning.” He raised an eyebrow at Steve and growled again.

“Yeah, you keep that up,” said Steve. “I’ll show you après-ski.”

“That was my intention,” said Tony, notching the smugness level up a little.

“You know what, I’ll come back later,” said Clint.

“No you won’t,” said Steve.

“You know I’ve always found your bossiness extremely sexy,” said Tony.

“Right, time out,” said Clint, about two seconds from putting his hands over his ears and shouting ‘la la la I’m not listening’. “What’s this about? Do I even want to know what this is about?”

Steve sighed. “Tony is throwing a hissy fit because I won’t wear his gag gift at work.”

“Not gag,” said Tony. “I swear, I am deadly serious about this.” He snagged a plastic carrier bag from one of Steve’s spare office chairs and held it out for Clint to take. Clint refused.

“Don’t,” said Steve, as Tony fingered the bag. “They’re lederhosen, Clint. Tony, in his wisdom, decided to buy me lederhosen. And now he’s pitching a fit that I won’t find time to wear them.”

“Hey, there’s always time for lederhosen,” said Tony, now clutching the bag protectively to his chest.

The air was tense between them, and Clint’s brain filled the gap with Tony’s apparent kink for leather pants.

Steve scowled at him. “Anyway, Clint, how can I help you?”

“Er,” Clint snapped back to the present. “Need to talk to you about a student?”

“Good,” said Steve. “I mean, not good, obviously. Tony, you’re dismissed.”

Tony looked startled and possibly also aroused.

“I mean it, Tony. You can go.”

“Huh,” said Tony softly, and with an expression that hovered somewhere between hurt and lust, he put the bag containing the lederhosen down, and left Steve’s office.

Steve nodded in Clint’s direction as if nothing had happened. “Anyway, a student?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Clint, sliding gratefully onto one of Steve’s chairs. “Situation I’ve not had before.”

“Proceed,” said Steve, all business and trying hard to show it.

“Okay. Say I have this student, and I think she’s been abused. What do I do?”

“What sort of abuse are we talking about here?”

Clint shrugged. “Physical. I don’t know how serious it is.”

“I assume that if you’d seen a student being attacked, your first impulse would have been to call the police,” Steve said flatly.

“Yeah, what? No. It’s not anything like that. I don’t think.” Clint paused. “I have a student who shows some signs of physical abuse. She has a mark on her arm, like someone’s been twisting it. I don’t know how serious it is, I don’t know how it happened or who did it, I don’t know if it’s the first time it’s happened, and I don’t know if that mark is the only one.” He paused. “I don’t even really know if it was an accident or if it was deliberate, I just have my suspicions.”

“Right,” said Steve. “Well, you’ve done the right thing. You’ve told me about it. You want to give me the name of this student?”

“Mindie Tanner.”

“Right,” said Steve, nodding and not making eye contact. “I’ll make a note of it.”

“What now?” said Clint.

“If there’s a cause for concern, I’ll escalate it,” said Steve.

“No, I mean, what now? What can I do now?” said Clint.

“You? Absolutely nothing. Unless you have evidence for actual abuse, unless you witness something yourself, you do nothing. You’ve done all you can.”

“But...” said Clint.

“No, Clint,” said Steve with an air of finality. “You see anything else, you report it. This could be something, or it could be nothing.” He spoke slowly. “But you have done all you can. All you are allowed to do.”

Clint couldn’t see how he could rationalise that. His mind went back to his own childhood, and he remembered how he’d wished that just once someone would step in to help him out in similar situations. How he wished that just once, a responsible adult had even noticed.

But he had noticed. And he had done something. And now he would try harder to notice more.

When he looked back at Steve, he found Steve assessing him, seeing more than Clint wanted him to see. Clint decided it was time to change the topic of conversation again.

“So, about these lederhosen,” said Clint, his eyes scouring the room for something else to talk about.

Steve groaned.

“No, listen,” said Clint. “Want to do something to stop Stark from going on about them?”

Steve nodded.

“Well, I wouldn’t do this for just anyone,” said Clint. He stood up and started to strip out of his pants.

Steve sat bemused as Clint shook the lederhosen out of their plastic wrap.

“Take some pictures,” said Clint. “Send them to Stark. I guarantee, you’ll never hear about these damn things again.”

Steve’s laugh was downright evil as he reached for his phone. “Straddle the chair for the first one,” Steve directed, a glint in his eye.

Well, that afternoon went places he wasn’t expecting, Clint thought as he pulled up outside Phil’s house later that evening. As he let himself into Phil’s, his senses were filled by the smell of cooking and the sounds of Phil, softly singing along to a song on the radio.

“I’m in the kitchen!” called Phil, as if that wasn’t immediately obvious. Clint smiled to himself, walked into the kitchen and drew Phil into a hug. He nestled into the crook of Phil’s neck and inhaled deeply.

“Well, hello,” said Phil, amused.

“Hi.”

“Tough day?”

“Busy.”

“Not too busy, though?” asked Phil.

Clint looked up to see a curious expression on Phil’s face. “Everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, it’s nothing,” said Phil. “Dinner in ten?”

Clint stepped back to look at Phil’s face. “Yeah, sure. Phil?”

Phil’s gaze skittered from Clint’s eyes along the counter, where another thick manila envelope stood waiting.

Clint took a deep breath. “Is that it?”

“Yeah,” said Phil, giving a small, one-shouldered shrug. He stirred their dinner.

“Can I look?”

“If you want.” Clint reached for the envelope, opened it, looked at the contents. “That’s it? The divorce is finalised?”

“Yes,” said Phil.

“How do you feel?”

Phil chuckled to himself. “Honestly? I don’t know. I suppose I’m supposed to feel what? Happy? Relieved?”

Clint shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve never been in that position. I’d hope you’d be happy, though.” Clint felt a weird sinking feeling in his stomach, like the last few months had been nothing more than a strange bubble Phil that had been inhabiting while he waited for his life to get back to normal. Rationally, he knew this wasn’t the case, but it didn’t stop his mind from playing tricks on him.

Phil looked up, interpreted Clint’s expression, and stopped what he was doing. “Hey, no,” said Phil, moving back into Clint’s space. “Whatever’s going through your mind.... Look,” he said. “I should be relieved, happy that this is final. But realistically, I moved on a long time ago. This is just... legal recognition of that fact.”

“So you’re saying the reason you’re not happy...”

“Is because the situation that this bit of paper resolves, corrects, whatever, was resolved a long time ago in every way that really matters.”

“Okay then,” said Clint.

“So with that in mind,” Phil sniffed, collecting himself. “Why don’t you open a bottle of wine, and we can celebrate my official freedom. And toast the fact that my ex-wife is now free to marry again.”

“I can do that,” said Clint.

Even though they were technically celebrating, Phil’s mood remained strained for the rest of the evening, even though he repeatedly assured Clint that he was fine. When they fell into bed later, Phil was needy, pulling at Clint, drawing his legs up around Clint’s waist. Clint fucked him slowly, deeply, listening to Phil’s deep, sharp intakes of breath with every thrust. He stroked Phil’s face as Phil made a keening sound deep in his throat and came.

Later still, as they lay curled up around each other in the dark and the stresses of the day slowly seeped away, Phil listlessly stroked Clint’s arm, looked into his eyes and smiled.

“So,” Phil whispered. “I had some interesting messages this afternoon.”

“Yeah?”

“From Steve and Tony.”

Clint had a sinking feeling as Phil reached for his phone.

“I was thinking maybe Mr January had some explaining to do,” Phil said with a smile in his voice, turning his phone around so that Clint could see one of the more incriminating photos Steve had taken that afternoon.

“I’m going to kill Stark,” said Clint.


	15. Don’t Kill Stark

It turned out that ‘I’m going to kill Stark’ was pretty much Clint’s motto for the whole of January.

Clint was returning from his first History 101 classes of the year, where he absolutely was not checking up on Mindie Tanner and her injured arm, when he spied Sam, Tony’s PhD student, leaning against the wall of his office, a bundle of marked essays under his arm.

“You need to take those to admin,” said Clint, on auto-pilot.

“I know,” said Sam. “It’s not about that. Can I come in for a minute?” he asked.

Clint looked at him curiously and unlocked his door. “Sure, what’s up?”

Sam looked up and down the corridor as if expecting to see someone, then ducked into Clint’s office.

“You’re Stark’s friend, right?” Sam asked, pulling out Clint’s guest chair and sitting down.

“You could say that.”

“And he was your PhD supervisor?”

“Yeah,” said Clint.

Sam crossed his arms across his chest, took a deep breath, and looked up and to his left. “I’m trying to think of a way to say this. A tactful way.”

“You got a problem?”

Sam looked directly at him. “Honestly, I don’t know.”

“Is that the problem?”

“Kinda.”

Clint took a wild guess. “Are you having trouble trying to pin Stark down to a meeting?”

“You could say that.”

“How often do you meet?”

Sam’s silence was deafening.

“Okay. When was the last time you had supervision?”

Sam pursed his lips.

“Sam, this is not good,” said Clint. “How long has this been going on?”

Sam huffed. “I guess I should have said something about this sooner.”

“You think?” said Clint, growing angry on Sam’s behalf. He looked at Sam’s startled expression. “I’m not angry with you,” he clarified. “I’m angry with Stark. Can you remember the last time you had supervision?”

“Not this year,” said Sam.

“Well, it’s only the end of January, I guess,” said Clint.

“No, what I mean is, I haven’t had supervision this academic year.”

“You what now? You haven’t had supervision since September?” Clint’s voice rose a full octave at the implication of Stark’s negligence. Regular supervisions, although ‘at supervisor’s discretion’ were mandatory and helped guide PhD students in their research. ‘Supervisor’s discretion’ was all very well, as long as your supervisor actually had any.

Sam’s words cut across Clint’s train of thought. “No. I mean I, er, haven’t had supervision since June.”

Clint’s palms hit the desk and Sam jumped back.

“Sorry, still not angry with you,” said Clint.

“What should I do?” said Sam. “I mean, how did you manage it?”

“Yeah, right,” said Clint, getting his thoughts in order. “Getting angry won’t help.”

“I figured,” said Sam.

“Well, absolutely the first thing you need to do is send an email to Pepper.”

“Pepper?”

“Pepper Potts. The Head of School.”

“I don’t know her. I mean, is that okay?” said Sam. “Won’t she mind?”

“Ordinarily, I’d caution against contacting the managerial staff, but in Stark’s case, it’s absolutely okay, and in fact I think I insist on it. Don’t worry about the fact that she’s technically his boss and you’re one of Stark’s students. This is a special kind of situation, and she’ll understand. She’s known Tony for a very long time and she’ll ride him hard until he does something about it.”

“Okay,” said Sam.

“If you haven’t heard back from her or Stark within a day or so, speak to me or email Pepper again. Generally though, talking to Pepper works.”

“Is that what you did?”

“Actually,” said Clint. “I didn’t know about Pepper for the first couple of years of my PhD either. It took me a while to catch on to that one. I tried a couple of other things first.”

“Such as?”

“Well, first, emailing Tony. Hanging around his office. Leaving notes. Steve had only just started working here, so it took me a while to realise that they were an item, but all the same it didn’t seem right dragging him into it.”

“They’re what?” said Sam, surprised.

“Oh, yeah. You didn’t know?” said Clint, and chuckled. “They’ve been together for a long time. Anyway, it wasn’t that. Something about going to the counsellor to complain about my supervisor didn’t sit right.”

“I can see that,” said Sam.

“Anyway, after a few weeks I started to get a bit more creative. Posting the work I wanted him to read under his office door. Gatecrashing his lessons and putting a copy of my work directly into his hands. Eventually, I borrowed that platform that the window cleaners use and used wallpaper paste to paste a couple of my chapters to the outside of his office windows.”

“And that worked?” said Sam, thinking through the merits of this plan.

“No,” said Clint, with an air of finality.

“So what did you do?” said Sam, finally starting to smile in the knowledge that he wasn’t alone in his dealings with Stark.

“Don’t try this,” said Clint. “I mean, seriously, don’t. It nearly got me kicked off the PhD programme.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

“And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t spread this around or tell the students.”

“O...kay.”

Clint gauged Sam’s sincerity, and continued. “I broke into Tony’s office and stole The Suit. I left him a note saying that unless he read my PhD, I’d send it back piece by piece.”

“In pieces,” Sam surmised.

“Yeah.”

“You kidnapped his iron armour.”

“Yeah,” said Clint. “Walked it right out of his office to my car. There’s still a security video of it knocking about somewhere.”

“And that worked?”

“It worked, and it got me a night in jail before he dropped the charges. So like I said, don’t try it.”

About an hour after Sam left Clint’s office, Clint heard the familiar staccato beat of Pepper’s heels marching purposefully along the corridor, followed by a slam and muted shouting. Clint slunk off to his next class ten minutes early, just in case the fallout headed in his direction.

The rest of the day was filled with teaching and admin, and watching the harried faces of students as they filed into the admin office to hand in their essays before the five PM deadline. Clint passed Mindie and her friends in the corridor, and he took from her smile and thumbs-up gesture that she’d managed to complete her essay on time. On the way back to his office, Clint noticed that Stark’s door now had a ‘do not disturb’ sign on it. An email from Sam confirmed that his advice had helped, and that Sam was in with Stark right now. Amongst his many emails, however, there was one that was far more interesting.

Clint stared at the sender’s name and title, psyching himself up to read it.

Sender: AliceArmstrong@plutopublishing.com. Subject: About your book, ‘The Recurve Bow and Genghis Khan’. His finger wavered over his mouse and he clicked the button.

He had to read the email several times to make sure that he’d got the facts straight.

‘Dear Dr Barton,’ it began. ‘Thank you for your email regarding the publication of your monograph, “The Recurve Bow and Genghis Khan”. Apologies for the delay in getting back to you: many of our staff have been on leave over the holiday period.

‘Pluto Publishing is considering the publication of this book. With that in mind, I have sent copies of your manuscript to our reviewers, who will review this work and assess its suitability for publication. Please bear in mind that the review process can take several months. I will let you know as soon as I hear back from the reviewers. Yours Faithfully, Alice Armstrong.’

Wow, thought Clint. Well, wow. Not an actual contract yet, but they were thinking about publishing his book. He fumbled for his phone and sent a message to Phil. He was still smiling and re-reading the email when Phil called him back, full of excitement and pride on his behalf.

Realising that he was unlikely to get any more work done this afternoon, Clint decided to call it a night and head to the bar. Discovering that Stark was an accident looking for a place to happen, most of the rest of the History staff joined Clint there shortly afterwards. By seven, the only staff not in the bar were Fury, who lived some distance away, and Stark himself.

Pepper squeezed into the seat next to Clint and placed a large glass of wine on the table in front of her. “So this is where you’ve all been hiding.”

“We’re generally pretty easy to find,” said Phil.

“And I plan to stay here until closing time, unless someone wants to put me up for the night,” said Steve, now on his third beer and looking none the worse for it.

Natasha raised her glass in his direction: an open invitation to crash on her couch.

By now, of course, everyone had heard of Stark’s disgrace, and also of Clint’s good news.

“It would be today, wouldn’t it?” said Pepper, waving at Darcy as she walked over, laden down with platefuls of nachos and fries. The bar couldn’t manage meals, but it certainly knew how to dish out the kind of snacks that kept its regulars drinking.

“Here you go,” said Darcy. Nobody was the slightest bit surprised when she pulled up a stool and squeezed in beside Natasha.

“I mean,” said Pepper, “It serves Tony right that he’s not here today. He’s usually keen to take more than his fair share of the credit for any work produced by his former students.”

“If he doesn’t do his job, he won’t have any students, former or otherwise,” said Steve, darkly.

“Harsh,” said Clint, mostly to fill the silence that descended over the table. “So, here’s to another semester,” he added, nodding in Bruce’s direction. He noted that Bruce was looking lean and tanned and obviously feeling much better for his Christmas break.

“And the hundred or so essays that each of us will have to mark come Wednesday,” said Bruce.

They all took a large swig at that.

“Guys,” said Darcy. “You don’t mind me sitting here, right?”

“No, of course not,” said Pepper. “Why?”

“You see those guys over there?” Darcy gestured vaguely towards three men huddled around a table on the other side of the room. Each of them would have looked unusual if you’d seen them alone, and downright remarkable if seen together anywhere else. As it stood, they all looked fairly ordinary when compared with Thor, who was at that moment breaking the habit of a lifetime and actually providing the men with table service.

“Yeah, we see them,” said Clint.

“Thor’s family is in town. Those guys work at the brewery, and they’re actually trying to have a staff meeting. He’s kind of got it into his head that he has to do something special for his family, and honestly, it’s driving me nuts,” said Darcy. “He’s had me sweep up behind the bar at least six times today. And I’m supposed to be going in half an hour.”

“Darcy! I require your assistance!” said Thor.

“See what I mean? There’s not even anyone waiting to be served right now.” Darcy rolled her eyes.

“I can complain about our waitress if you like,” said Natasha, quirking a smile. “That might take a couple of minutes.”

“See,” said Darcy, waving a finger in Natasha’s direction. “That’s the kind of help I don’t need. I thought you were a nice lady.”

“And you’ve known her how long?” said Pepper.

“Seven years,” said Natasha, and raised her glass in acknowledgement.

“You’ve taught Darcy all the way through from undergraduate to PhD supervisor?” said Bruce.

Natasha nodded. “Darcy has a flair for the dramatic,” she said. “Which I enjoy.”

“Hmph,” said Darcy. “Last time you said that you asked me to cite my sources for wailing and gnashing of teeth. Me. I was the one wailing.”

“Darcy! We need your assistance!” Thor yelled again, slightly louder this time. Clint wondered if it was possible for his booming voice to start ripples in a glass of beer in much the same way that the T-Rex had caused ripples in a glass of water in Jurassic Park.

“I’m coming!” Darcy yelled back. “Hey, you, suit guy,” she said to Phil. “Surely you can help a lady out?” She fluttered her eyelashes in an outrageous manner and Phil snorted into his beer.

“How about you get us some more dips to go with those fries?” he said.

“That’s not helpful either,” Darcy said, slapping Phil lightly on the shoulder. “That’s actually more work. Okay, I’m done.” Darcy rose with a flounce, and took her time heading back towards Thor and the bar.

When Darcy was most of the way across the room, Clint leaned a bit closer towards Natasha. “How’s she doing?” he asked. “I mean, if you can say. She’s been GTAing on History 101, and she’s doing a good job, but it’d be good to know how the rest of it is going.”

“Fine,” said Natasha, still watching Darcy. “She’s doing okay. Students,” Natasha shrugged. “Full-time degree, teaching work and a part-time job. I sometimes wonder how anyone holds it together. But look at her.” She gestured in Darcy’s direction.

“Looks fine to me,” said Phil, eyes on Darcy, who was now arguing with Thor.

“She’s actually pretty close to finishing,” said Natasha, looking more than a little proud.

“Say, didn’t I hear someone mention you were having problems with a student a while back?” said Phil.

Pepper, Bruce, Steve and Clint shot surreptitious looks at one another and refused to meet Natasha’s gaze.

“Where did you hear that?” said Natasha.

Phil looked at his companions and realised that he’d said something out of turn. “My mistake,” he said.

Natasha stared at Phil, daring him to go on.

Pepper sighed. “Okay,” she said. “Enough. Let’s all acknowledge the elephant in the room. He’s talking about Barnes. Did you manage to sort out your issue with James Barnes.”

“Yes,” said Natasha tersely. “And there’s no issue.”

“And there we have it,” said Pepper.

“I’m sorry,” said Phil.

“That’s alright,” said Pepper, curiously choosing to apologise on Natasha’s behalf. Clint looked over at Natasha and witnessed not a scowl, but a raised eyebrow. Well, okay then.

“Ready to go?” said Natasha.

“Let me just...” said Pepper, knocking back the remainder of her drink. She rose to her feet and Natasha and Pepper left the bar together.

“What just happened there?” said Bruce.

“I, er,” said Steve, eyebrows raised and mouth falling open.

“No way,” said Clint.

“Did anyone else see that?” said Bruce.

“They’re not, are they?” said Steve, still looking towards the doors of the bar. “No one mention this to Tony.”

“I know nothing,” said Phil.

“Right, well, I guess I’d better be heading home,” said Steve. His shoulders slumped and he sighed. “Sometimes....”

Bruce smiled sympathetically. “Will Tony be there?”

“Maybe,” said Steve, starting to sound even more dejected. “He’s actually supposed to be giving the departmental seminar this week, but as far as I know, he’s not even started writing it yet.”

“If you’re looking for a reason to stay out, I hear there’s a pretty good movie on at the Cornerhouse,” said Bruce.

“Uh-huh,” said Steve.

“It’s that one about Turner,” Bruce prodded.

Steve gave Bruce a quizzical look, and smiled. “Okay,” he said.

“I think that’s our cue as well,” said Phil.

“Yeah, alright,” said Clint.

“I have to show my partner just how proud of him I am for getting a book deal,” said Phil.

Clint, surprised, started to blush. “Potentially getting a book deal,” he corrected. He smiled to himself at Phil’s words, and stayed smiling all the way back to Phil’s house.

Tony’s posters for the Great Egg Race went up the next day – about three months before they were actually needed – and heralded another shit-storm between Tony and the management about his priorities. Clint saw the gaudy typeface all over campus as he went about his day, but finally stopped to read one during his lunch break. The largest poster, naturally, was just outside Tony’s office, which was almost directly across the corridor from Clint’s. Sam lounged against the poster while waiting to go in and see Tony.

“Hey,” said Clint, nodding in Sam’s direction. “Another meeting?”

“Another supervision,” Sam said. “Stark spent so much time going off on tangents yesterday that we barely covered the first chapter of my thesis.”

The sound of muffled swearing came from within Tony’s office, and he flung his door open.

“You,” he said pointing at Clint, “what’s up with the network?”

“Dunno,” said Clint with a shrug.

“Do you know?” Tony said, now pointing at Sam.

“Hey, I’ve just been out here waiting for you,” said Sam.

Tony stood next to the poster of himself, his scowling face the polar opposite of the vacuous smiling cartoon one on the poster. “The network’s down,” Tony said. “Do me a favour and call Pepper? Or that IT guy, Jarvis.”

“Jarvis?” said Clint. “I thought he was Student Services?”

“Yeah, he’s both. I can’t do anything, and I’ve only got two days to write this speech.”

“Have you tried turning it off and on again?” said Clint.

Tony shot Clint a look of pure distain, then turned to Sam. “Might as well come on in,” Tony said, waving Sam into his office. “Though I doubt we’ll be able to get anything done.”

Sam’s shoulders slumped. “Wish me luck,” he sighed, loud enough for Tony to hear.

As the door closed behind them, Clint examined the text of the poster.

‘Marivale University in conjunction with TCT Productions Presents TONY STARK’S GREAT EGG RACE,’ the heading declared. Next to this there was a cartoon of Tony Stark in his iron suit, the helmet under his arm so that everyone could see his grinning face. The poster also contained several images of eggs being propelled through water (and vaguely in Tony’s direction for comic effect) in case the text wasn’t clear enough.

’18 June. Your mission, should you choose to accept it: design a device to propel six eggs twenty metres through water, using WATER POWER alone in THREE MINUTES OR LESS.

‘Aqueducts... siphons... watermills... your own design? WIN THESE FANTASTIC PRIZES: 1st prize: college bursaries* PLUS iPads for each team member. 2nd prize: Mountain bikes.* 3rd prize: Amazon vouchers.* Additional prize for most innovative design.

‘If you are enrolled at any university, college or school in this state and you are aged 16 years or over, you are eligible to enter a team.*

‘Still need more incentive? The competition final will be TELEVISED!

‘To enter your team and for terms and conditions, go to www.marivale.edu/greateggrace.

‘*Terms and conditions apply.’

Since the university had already contacted the local schools about the competition, most of this seemed like overkill to Clint. He guessed it was only a matter of time before Tony bugged him again about the Twitter campaign.

Clint let himself into his office and attempted to start up his computer. As Tony had said, the network server was down. He dug out the scrappy piece of paper with the IT support phone number on it, but no one picked up, which Clint could only hope meant that Jarvis was busy somewhere fixing the problem. Clint sighed, dug out his memory stick, and settled down to the most peaceful lunch break he’d had in a long while.


	16. Family Ties

The university IT systems were back up and running the next day, complete with warning emails that everyone needed to change their passwords. Then they were down again, up again, and down again. By Friday, everyone was fuming and Jarvis seemed to have disconnected his phone completely. Tony, naturally, used this as an opportunity to cancel his departmental seminar, since he never printed anything out unless he absolutely had to, and could blame the university for losing any research he may or may not have done in the preceding weeks.

By the weekend, everyone was beyond stressed with both the unreliability of their IT systems and the piles of essays they now had to mark. People actually took to visiting their colleagues in person when they wanted any information, which meant that on three separate occasions, Clint spent his breaks hiding in the romantic poetry section of the library to avoid people who wanted to complain about their essays, Tony, and, well, Tony mostly.

By Monday morning all IT problems were resolved and no one in the department ever found out what the problem had been.

Essays were marked and returned, and life went on.

Before Clint knew it, it was February. He only became truly aware of this when he dropped into Tanner’s Stores for a six-pack of beer on his way home and was assaulted by a display of pink hearts, cards, candy and every other thing that was typically foisted upon the general public in the weeks prior to Valentine’s Day. He was morosely reading the text of one card when Mindie Tanner appeared at his elbow, at least as embarrassed as he was by the situation. “Can I help you Sir?” she said in her most professional manner.

Behind her and on the other side of the shop, Clint could see Mindie’s mom making a shooing gesture, the universal parental code for ‘get on with it’.

“Er, no. I’m fine thanks,” said Clint, hastily replacing a cute card with two porcupines on it. The door rattled and a cold gust of wind indicated that someone else had entered the shop.

Mindie gave Clint a small smile and nodded. She was just turning to walk back towards her mother when something behind Clint caught her eye. Instantly she froze and her mouth pursed into a tight line. On the other side of the shop, Mindie’s mother also frowned and started to walk towards them.

“Mindie, honey,” said a gravelly male voice.

Clint turned around.

A filthy, bedraggled man was approaching them. His old, padded jacket was caked in grime, its stuffing poking out in places. His hair fell past his shoulders in thick wads of tangles, and on the top of his head was an old woollen hat that looked like it had been run over by a truck.

“Get out of my shop,” said Mindie’s mom.

“Our shop,” said the man.

“It hasn’t been your shop in years, Roy,” said Mindie’s mom. “You can’t keep coming round here.”

Clint and Mindie, sandwiched between the two of them, had nowhere to go.

The man ignored Mindie’s mom and instead gave Mindie a sympathetic smile, dropping to his knees as if to speak to a much younger child. “You want to see your old dad, don’t you?” he said. He reached out towards Mindie and made a grabbing movement. She flinched away from him, and hid behind Clint, grasping onto his arms.

“Is this the new one, then?” said the man sharply, looking at Mindie’s mom. “This the father of your bastard?”

Mindie’s mom gave a sudden hiss; a sharp intake of breath. She launched herself in the man’s direction and lashed out towards him with her fists. He put his arms up to protect himself, then shuffled back on his knees before rising back to his feet and stumbling towards the door. He almost fell out of the shop, the door juddering closed behind him.

Mindie’s mom quickly checked the store for other customers, then flipped the sign to ‘Closed’ and locked the door. She stood looking out towards the road for a few moments, and when she was satisfied, she ran a hand through her hair and nodded. “Just a minute,” she said, and went to the back of the store.

Clint felt Mindie’s grip loosen as she stepped out from behind him, head down and dreadfully ashamed.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I’m sorry, sorry, sorry.”

“Hey, that’s okay,” said Clint, and without stopping to think about it, wrapped his arms around her.

Mindie seized up for a few seconds, then suddenly shuddered and accepted a brief hug. After a moment she stepped back and looked fleetingly up at him, barely making eye contact. Her eyes were wet, but she was not crying.

“I’m really sorry,” said Mindie, rubbing her face. “He does this occasionally. Can you, er, can you hang on a minute? Mom’s just gone to make a phone call.”

“Sure,” said Clint.

In the silence of the store, Clint fished around for something to say.

“Your dad, huh?”

Not something tactful, obviously.

“Yeah,” said Mindie, grateful that she wasn’t expected to explain any of this. “He’s not supposed to come round here any more, but he does sometimes. Christmas and birthdays, mostly.” She shrugged. “We probably won’t see him until Easter now.”

“Right,” said Clint. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Clint could hear Steve’s voice warning him to stay out of the personal lives of his students. But this wasn’t school business on school property. This was one local resident caught up in a situation with another local resident. Inner Steve would be all over that, surely.

“Anything I can do?” he asked.

“No,” said Mindie, honestly. She looked around, obviously searching for a new topic of conversation. “So, porcupines, huh?” she said, looking at the card Clint had stuffed back into the Valentine’s display.

“Oh yeah,” said Clint, grateful for the change. He shrugged. “They’re cute.”

“Your girlfriend like them?” said Mindie, recovering quickly, and even chancing a small smile.

There was no University training course on how to come out to your students, but as a way of changing the mood, Clint reckoned that this one would really do the job. He looked into the eyes of the girl he had been teaching for the last five months. “Boyfriend, actually.”

Mindie’s eyes flickered and her expression adjusted. “Really?”

“Yeah, really,” said Clint.

A fraction of a second’s pause. “That’s cool,” said Mindie. “I, er, never figured.”

“Well, there you go,” said Clint, and shrugged again. He pulled the porcupine card back out of the card display, now intending to purchase it.

“How long have you guys been... you know?” said Mindie.

“About five months.”

“Well, in that case, you’re going to need more than a card,” said Mindie. “Come on, come with me.”

For the next ten minutes, Mindie led Clint around the store, pointing out increasingly more outrageous gifts to Clint and making him laugh. On his second circuit of the store, Mindie’s mom stepped out from the back room and let a police officer into the shop. The speed of their interview let Clint know, more than anything else, that this sort of thing happened to the Tanners on a regular basis.

When the interviews were finished and the store was technically open again, Clint bought the card, some beer and a bottle of wine. He was just about to leave when Mindie ran up to him and caught him by the sleeve. “Thanks,” she said, then immediately seemed to run out of things to say.

“Okay,” said Clint.

“I, er.” Mindie shuffled her feet. “Mom just wanted to say thanks as well. She said to give you this.”

She held out a box of chocolates and pushed them towards Clint, who automatically reached out and took them.

“Thanks!” he said, looking down and recognising an expensive brand that he knew Phil would like. “Thanks a lot.”

Mindie, embarrassed again now, nodded and walked back towards her mother.

Clint hoped he wouldn’t have to explain to Mindie that he wouldn’t gossip about what he’d seen that night. He also knew that he’d have to mention it to at least two people, namely Steve (in his role as university counsellor), and Phil.

He was supposed to be staying in his own apartment that night, but he had an open invitation to stay with Phil whenever he wanted, so instead of going home, he turned the car towards Phil’s house instead.

Clint let himself in with his key and immediately heard Phil, deep in conversation with a woman. “Hey,” he called out to announce himself. He took off his winter coat, hung it up and hid the Valentine’s card in one of the inside pockets, then headed to where the voices were coming from.

Phil was seated at the desk in his under-stair ‘office’, deep in conversation with his sister, via Skype.

“Hey,” Clint said, leaning forward over the back of Phil’s crappy office chair and awkwardly kissing Phil on the temple.

“Hi,” said Phil, looking up at him and smiling.

“Oh, there you go again,” said Megan.

“Hey,” said Clint, waving at her.

“I didn’t think you’d be here tonight,” said Phil. “Just give me a few minutes?”

“Sure,” said Clint.

“You don’t have to go,” said Megan.

“I’ve bought us some wine,” said Clint. “Back in a minute.”

“Well, in that case,” said Megan.

Clint went to the kitchen and dumped the rest of his purchases and the surprise chocolates on the counter, uncorked the wine and poured two glasses. By the time he’d returned to the living area, Megan had been joined by all of Phil’s nieces.

“Hi, Uncle Clint,” they said in unison. Megan chuckled, and Phil looked a little sheepish.

Clint flushed. “Hi, kids,” he said.

“See, I told you he’d love it,” said Megan.

“Sorry,” Phil whispered. “She insisted.”

“Okay, loves,” said Megan. “Gotta go. You two have fun.”

The nieces took their turns saying goodbye to both of them, and with a sigh of relief, Phil closed Skype and shut down his computer.

“What’s up?” Phil asked, swivelling his chair around to face Clint. “I thought you weren’t coming over tonight?” He took the glass of wine that Clint offered him.

“Hell of a day,” said Clint. He sighed and summarized his day, from the crappiness of an attendance register that had him enter student details three times before it would actually save them, to the business of the last hour or so. Phil listened sympathetically, but to Clint’s surprise, it was the university’s IT problems that grabbed his attention.

“Are you sure you’re not getting hacked?” said Phil.

“What?”

“I mean, if your IT department doesn’t know what’s causing it. I mean, it might be worth looking into.”

Clint shrugged. “They’d be doing that already, right?”

Phil shrugged back. “Come on, let’s go sit on the couch. I’m getting a crick in my neck looking up from this chair.”

“Okay. Let me just go get the rest of the wine.”

Clint deposited his wine glass on the coffee table and went to the kitchen for the rest of the bottle and the chocolates. When he returned, Phil was lounging on the couch. He put the wine and chocolates on the table in front of Phil, then nestled in under Phil’s arm and got comfortable. Phil leaned forward slightly, and passed Clint his wine. “Nice chocolates.”

“They’re from Mindie’s mom. I thought you’d like them.”

Phil kept his arm around Clint and tried to open the box single-handed. When that didn’t work, he passed the box to Clint, who fumbled his wine and also tried to open the box with one hand before giving up and putting his wine down.

When he finally got the box open, he helped himself to a chocolate before picking out one that he knew Phil would like. He held it in front of Phil’s mouth.

“All right then. Thank you,” said Phil, leaning forward slightly and taking the chocolate.

“Muhff,” said Clint, his words muffled by his own chocolate.

“So anyway,” said Phil, rubbing his chin against the top of Clint’s head. “I’ve got a couple of things I want to ask you.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I was going to leave one of them until the weekend, but anyway....”

“What?”

“Well, the first one’s easy. Would you like to go out for dinner somewhere nice Saturday night?”

“Sure,” said Clint.

“It’s Valentine’s Day,” said Phil, who knew Clint well enough to know that Clint might not have registered this fact.

“Yeah,” said Clint.

“That means everywhere we go will be hearts, flowers, the works. Restaurants can get kind of....” said Phil.

“Yeah, I’d like to. I’d like that,” said Clint.

“Okay then,” said Phil.

“You’ve already booked somewhere haven’t you?” said Clint, who knew Phil well enough to know that he planned this sort of thing well in advance.

“Might have,” said Phil, shrugging with one shoulder and nudging Clint in the process.

“Have another chocolate,” said Clint, reaching into the box and passing one up to Phil without looking.

“That one’s marzipan,” said Phil.

“Don’t want it?”

“No, I’ll eat it.”

Clint felt Phil’s soft lips lift the chocolate out of his fingers.

“Nice,” said Phil. “It’s somewhere nice, but not too fancy. Italian.”

“Italian’s good.”

“Yup.”

“So what was the other thing?” said Clint. “You said two things, right?”

“Yeah.” Phil paused, and the arm that was around Clint pulled him in a little tighter. “I was wondering if you’d like to move in with me,” he said.

“In here? Oh,” said Clint.

“I mean, there’s no rush, if you don’t want to,” Phil backtracked. “But you’re here more often than not, and I thought.... And I like having you here.”

“No, I mean yes,” said Clint.

“Yes?”

“Yes, I’d like to move in with you.” Clint twisted round under Phil’s arm so he could make eye contact. As he did so, he knocked the box of chocolates onto the couch. As his hand reached out to rescue them, the glass of wine in his other hand tilted alarmingly and spilt wine onto his pants.

“Ah, crap,” said Clint, moving now to put the glass of wine onto the coffee table. As the glass of wine touched the coffee table, several of the chocolates rolled off of the couch and onto the floor, where they were immediately crushed by one of Clint’s feet.

“Well, that didn’t go quite as I was expecting,” said Phil, standing up and rescuing the rest of the chocolates. “I’ll go get a cloth. And maybe a brush.”

Clint tidied up as best as he could while waiting for Phil to come back. When Phil returned, Clint was on his hands and knees on the floor, picking bits of fondant filling out of the carpet. “Are you sure you want me to move in with you?” Clint asked. He stood up and brushed his knees.

“Yes,” said Phil, stepping forward so that he could hold him. “I really do.” Phil’s lips brushed Clint’s ear. “Though I may have to invest in laminate flooring.”

“Then the answer’s yes.” Clint smiled, then playfully grabbed Phil’s side.

“Hey,” said Phil. “Now let me just clear the rest of this up.”

“Okay. I’ll just...” Clint gestured at the wine he’d spilt on his pants, then went to the kitchen to sponge himself down. When he was done, he braced himself against the kitchen counter and took several deep breaths. He gazed out of the window into the dark and saw only his own reflection looking back at him. Was this it? This, here with Phil, was going to be home? His chest felt tight with the thought of it.

Phil appeared behind Clint, also reflected in the window. He watched Clint watching him, set the cleaning supplies down, then moved in close and wrapped his arms around Clint. He nuzzled Clint’s ear, then nibbled on his earlobe. “Want to put the rest of this away and have an early night?” he said.

“This is just so...” said Clint.

Phil’s hands slid up Clint’s chest, then over to his shoulders and down his arms. “I love you,” said Phil. “I love all of you.”

“Even when I’m clumsy?”

“Even then.” Phil paused. “Not especially then, but even then.” Clint felt Phil’s face crease into a smile. “Come on. Let me show it.”

Phil led him up to the bedroom and undressed Clint slowly before undressing himself. Under the covers, they kissed deeply for a long time, until Phil rolled himself on top of Clint, took Clint’s hand and squeezed a generous portion of lubricant onto his fingers, then guided Clint’s hand to Phil’s ass.


	17. The Valentine’s Day Marrer

“Well, isn’t this cosy,” said Tony Stark, pulling out a chair at the table next to theirs and sitting down. Phil’s hand slid off of Clint’s, where it had been resting on the top of their table, and his mouth fell open in surprise. Clint considered smashing his head against his side plate. Tony nonchalantly whipped his napkin out of the wine glass it had been placed in, gave it a flick, and laid it across his lap.

“Hey,” said Steve, giving them a small, awkward wave before sitting down across the table from Tony.

“Could this be any more awkward?” said Clint.

“Definitely,” said Tony. “I haven’t slept with either of you.”

“That was a birthday surprise I’d rather not have again,” said Steve.

“I didn’t know,” said Phil, looking at Clint with his eyebrows raised.

“That I hadn’t slept with you?” said Tony.

“Shut up, Stark,” said Clint.

“I didn’t know they’d booked this restaurant too,” said Phil. “Sorry.”

Clint smiled at Phil sympathetically. “S’okay.” But it wasn’t. It really, really wasn’t.

“It’s a small town,” said Tony, carrying on as if he couldn’t be anything other than a welcome addition to anyone’s romantic evening. “There’s only two – three max – half-decent restaurants here. The odds were high we’d wind up in the same place sooner or later.”

“The odds are pretty high you’ll be sleeping on the couch tonight if you keep interrupting their evening,” said Steve. “I’ll, er, see if I can get the waiter to move us to another table.” He looked around in vain for one of the wait staff.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Clint. The restaurant was packed, and with only two sittings for dinner, it was likely to remain so for the rest of the evening. He turned his attention back to Phil, hoping that Steve would keep Tony in line. The best that could be said of the situation was that they weren’t in each other’s direct line of sight, and for the most part, Clint managed to block out Tony’s presence as he deliberately took Phil’s hand and started to peruse the menu once more.

“Have you been here before?” asked Phil, looking at Clint over the top of his menu.

“Nah,” said Clint. “Last time I had a date for Valentine’s we didn’t do anything fancy.” That was an understatement, Clint thought to himself. Last time he’d had a ‘date’ for Valentine’s they hadn’t made it out of the bar. “You?”

“No,” said Phil. “I mean, when we met, I’d only been living here a few months. Me and the ex-wife always used to go to a little Moroccan place in the city.”

“Right,” said Clint. “How’s she doing?”

“They’re all fine. Planning a spring wedding, I think.”

“Wow.”

“I know.”

“So I guess you can’t recommend anything on the menu?” said Clint.

“Sorry,” said Phil.

“You might want to try the tricolore salad as a starter,” said Tony. “It’s light, but it’s got a bit of a bite to it so ow! Hey, why did you do that?”

“Sorry,” said Steve.

“You kicked me,” said Tony, sounding more hurt than he probably was.

“Leave them alone. You’re out with me,” said Steve, his voice quiet but firm.

Clint couldn’t help glancing over at Tony, which turned out to be a mistake. Tony had responded to Steve’s voice of command the way he always did. His mouth was hanging open and his eyes had glazed over. Clint shook himself and returned to his perusal of the menu.

“And I’ll have a side-order of the eye bleach,” said Phil, deadpan. “Because if I never have to see that look on Tony Stark’s face again, it’ll be too soon.”

Clint barked out a laugh, and Phil’s eyes twinkled in the candlelight. “Actually, that salad does sound pretty good,” Phil added.

“They have fried cheese,” said Clint, his voice reverent. “There’s a dish here that is just fried cheese with chilli sauce.”

“I know, right? Okay if I choose the wine?”

“Go ahead.”

Eventually, a waiter came over and took their order, then very quickly returned with their wine. While they waited for their food Clint took a few moments to just sit and admire Phil.

“What?” said Phil, after a few moments.

“Er, nothing.”

“Crazy guy.”

“Actually, there was something,” said Clint, “But I was hoping not to have to talk about it with Stark in the room.”

Phil leant forward across the table. “Okay, so now you’ve got me curious.”

Clint leant forward as well, his heart thudding at the thought of telling Phil his good news. “D’you remember a while back I said that I’d submitted my book to a publisher, and that it was going to be sent out for review to see whether it was suitable for publication?”

“Of course. It’s not the sort of thing I’m likely to forget.”

“Well I heard back from them today. There’s a bunch of stuff they want to change, but they’re going to publish it.”

“That’s fantastic news,” Phil said. “I’m so pleased for you!”

“There’s still a lot of work to do,” said Clint, smiling.

“But you did it! You’re going to be published!” Phil leaned in to kiss him, and Clint stroked Phil’s face.

When they broke the kiss, Tony Stark was right there, leaning forward so his face was on a level with theirs.

“I’m not kissing you too,” said Phil.

“Tch,” said Tony, and stroked his tie as if he’d been offended. “Did I hear right? This your book?”

“Yeah,” said Clint.

“Then that calls for champagne,” said Tony, standing upright and snapping his fingers as if that was an appropriate thing to do.

“Oh no,” said Phil, looking at the remainder of a bottle of wine they had to get through.

“Relax,” said Tony. “We can share the bottle.”

A waiter darted over and Tony ordered something that sounded hideously expensive to Clint’s ears. Phil blanched, and Tony waved off any objections before sitting back down again. “I assume I’m in this book,” said Tony.

Steve rolled his eyes.

“I’m proud of you,” said Phil. He beamed at Clint, and over at the next table, Stark made strangled noises.

The waiter returned with the champagne, and served four glasses. Tony lifted his glass in toast to Clint, knocked the glass back and poured himself another.

“To your book,” said Phil, lifting his glass to Clint in a toast.

They talked about work for a few minutes until their first course arrived and they started eating.

“Oh my god,” said Clint taking a bite of his cheese. “I could live off this stuff.”

“My sister does this baked camembert thing you’d like,” said Phil, nodding to himself. “She says they might visit during the Easter break. I’m sure we can persuade her to cook it.”

“You’re going to ask her to cook for us?”

“You know I wouldn’t ordinarily,” said Phil. “But she loves baked cheese, and she never usually has the excuse to make it for herself. Also, she won’t give me the recipe, so.”

“Gotcha. It’ll be nice to see them again.”

Phil looked pensive. “Any more thoughts on moving in?”

“I’m starting to pack,” said Clint. “Having a big clear-out. I’ve given the landlord notice, but that gives me a whole month.”

“Okay, great.”

“I mean, I can be in before that, if you like. You sure you’ll have enough space?”

“It’s a big empty house. I’m sure,” said Phil. “There’s a whole guest room you can turn into an office if you want.”

“Seriously? Thanks.” Clint’s heart fluttered and he flushed. “I’ve just realised something. When Megan and the kids visit, I’ll be living there.”

“Sure will.”

Clint visualised the situation: what it might be like to have guests – family – staying in their home. His train of thought was interrupted by Phil.

“Be back in a minute,” said Phil. “Rest room.”

Phil got up from the table and Clint noticed that Phil had chosen to visit the bathrooms at the same time as Stark. Looking over at Steve, Clint could see that he was bemused by something.

“Okay, what’s going on?” said Clint.

“I was going to ask you the same thing. Does Phil know that Tony hates it when someone stands next to him at the urinals?”

“He what? He does? I didn’t know that,” said Clint.

Steve shrugged, and changed the subject. “More champagne?”

The waiter returned to take their side plates away, and Phil returned, looking as if nothing untoward had happened.

He sat down and interlaced his fingers with Clint’s. “I am looking forward to us living together,” Phil said, a look of such sincerity on his face that Clint’s throat felt tight.

“Not worried that I’ll mess your place up?” said Clint.

Phil shrugged, “Not really.”

“That I’ll smash stuff?”

“I’ll cope.”

“That you’ll forever have to scrape food out of soft furnishings?”

“There are worse things,” said Phil. “I want to live with you, Clint Barton. I want to wake up next to you and go to sleep with you and argue with you over whose turn it is to take the garbage out. I want to do all that stuff. With you. For as long as you’ll let me.”

Clint was speechless.

“And I’m prepared to put up with a little mess in order to have that,” said Phil, and smiled.

“I love you too,” said Clint.

Tony sat back down at the next table, muttering under his breath. “I can’t work with that man,” he said.

For the rest of their meal, Phil and Clint stumbled their way through chit-chat where the tone of their conversation was more important than their actual words. Occasionally, they touched hands. Frequently, they stopped eating and exchanged glances. Their world narrowed until it was just the two of them. By the time they’d finished their dessert, the restaurant was starting to dim the lights and Tony and Steve had already left. Much to Clint’s surprise, he realised that they’d got through their bottle of wine and half of the champagne. He looked over at Phil, full to the brim with happiness, good food and alcohol.

“Are you alright to drive?” Clint asked.

“Probably,” said Phil. “But maybe we should get a cab. Looks like it’s starting to snow.”

Clint peered out of the window and thought he could see the first flurry of tiny flakes against the blackness. “We’ll be lucky,” he said. “Everyone else is heading home right now. We might have better luck in an hour.”

Phil looked pensive. “Okay. What do you have in mind?”

Clint smiled. “Remember those clubs we visited on our first evening out?”

“Way back in the mists of time, yeah.”

“How ‘bout we go back? Just until the streets are a little quieter,” said Clint.

“You’re on,” said Phil.

They paid their bill, wrapped up against the cold and headed out into the night. As they passed Phil’s car, the flakes of snow started to fall faster and thicker.

They walked along side by side, shoulders occasionally rubbing, heading for the side streets that housed the town’s few bars and nightclubs. The Doom Bar, one of the bars they’d been to on their first night out, was packed with drunken people considerably younger than either of them.

“Maybe this was a mistake,” said Phil, rubbing snow out of his hair.

“Relax,” said Clint. “We’ll hit the quiet area.” He shouldered his way through to the bar and got them both drinks. Still carrying both of them, Clint headed towards the back, Phil immediately behind him, passing several people he vaguely recognised from university. Suddenly, Clint stopped short, and Phil walked straight into the back of him. Clint sloshed their drinks and beer ran down his hands and onto his shirt cuffs.

“What is it?” said Phil, leaning in close.

“Back up. Back to the bar,” said Clint, starting to edge backwards. “This was a mistake.”

Phil, looking over Clint’s shoulder, saw two dark heads engaged in some very serious kissing. “Is that?” he asked incredulously.

“Back up,” hissed Clint.

They turned and headed back to the bar, and Clint passed a beer over to Phil. They both took a swig.

“That looked like Bruce,” said Phil.

“You’re not wrong,” said Clint.

“Who’s the other guy?”

Clint chuckled. “That’s the only guy I know who’s more intense than Bruce. Actually, the guy gives Bruce a run for his money when it comes to serious brooding.”

“Who is he though?” asked Phil.

“One of Natasha’s mature students,” said Clint. “His name’s Bucky Barnes. I actually thought, no, never mind what I thought. For a while I thought that maybe he and Natasha had something going on.”

“How long’s this been going on?” said Phil.

“Search me.” said Clint. He shook his head in an attempt to blot out the image of Bruce with his tongue down Bucky’s throat, Bruce’s own neck red from where Bucky’s stubble had scratched him. “I knew Bruce was planning to make a few changes in his life, but I would never have guessed at this.”

Phil glanced over Clint’s shoulder, back to where Bruce and Bucky were still enthusiastically making out. “Maybe we should just head on over to Thor’s bar,” he said.

“Are you serious?” said Clint. “Have you seen that place? It looks like an explosion in an abattoir. The place is dripping with hearts.”

“Nice imagery,” said Phil.

“Anyway, there’s probably nowhere else in town where we won’t bump into someone we know.”

“Huh,” said Phil. “Well, in that case, I guess you’ll just have to drink my beer for me, and we’ll head back to the car.”

Clint gave Phil a sympathetic little shrug, but this was an idea he was totally on board with.

“Hey, Biceps,” said Darcy, appearing outside Clint’s office at eight o’clock the following Monday morning, a large cardboard box in her arms and a heavy-looking courier bag slung over her shoulder. From head to toe, she looked exhausted. She slumped, and her bag slipped off of her shoulder.

“Come on in, put those down. I’ve made coffee.” Clint gestured at the coffee machine he’d received as a Christmas present.

“You’re a life saver,” said Darcy, stumbling into the room and dumping the box on an empty chair. She shut his door and slumped into the guest chair beside Clint’s desk.

“What’s up?” said Clint, pouring two mugs of the good stuff and passing one to Darcy. “Busy Valentine’s weekend?”

“Ha!” she said. “And not in a good way.”

“Oh?”

“See that box?”

“Yeah?” said Clint.

“My magnum opus. My magnificent octopus, or whatever.”

“Your PhD?”

“Yup.”

“You’re submitting?”

“Yup. It’s all done, all printed out and ready to go.”

“Congratulations.”

“Cheers,” said Darcy, and toasted Clint with her coffee. Clint returned the toast.

“How’s it feel?”

“Exhausting,” said Darcy. “Actually, still kinda numb. I was trying to get in touch with Natasha all weekend, but she didn’t reply.”

“Whatever for? I’m sure it’ll be fine,” said Clint.

Darcy shrugged. “Moral support?”

“Seriously?”

“Okay, I wanted her to share my pain. Printing that cost me a damn fortune.”

“That’s more like it. So what now?”

“Off to the admin office,” said Darcy, “Then I’m teaching. Not that anyone’s going to get any sense out of me today.” Darcy sunk further into her chair and tilted her head back until she was staring at the ceiling.

“You don’t look like you’re going anywhere,” said Clint.

Darcy turned her head and squinted at him. “So why are you so chipper? Don’t tell me if it’s gross.”

“I’m not, but compared with you, I’m having a great day.”

“Doing?”

“Admin.”

“Well, I can see how that might be... wonderful?” said Darcy.

“I’m going through thesis proposals from the juniors. It’s surprisingly cathartic.”

“You and I have very different concepts of the word ‘fun’. And I say this with the greatest of respect, having met your boyfriend, who is rather dollsome.”

Clint beamed. “Thanks. More coffee?”

“God yes.”

“I’ll read you one,” said Clint. “Ready?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, here goes. ‘My plan, smiley face.’”

“They didn’t?”

Clint shrugged. “I want my thesis to be on the Romans,” Clint continued. “I will prove how the Romans enslaved elephants and then say how Romans used chemistry and the alps and the epelhants.”

“I can see how this guy’s benefitted from three years of college education,” said Darcy.

“There’s more,” said Clint.

“Doesn’t it make you mad?” said Darcy, sitting up straighter now. “You put all that effort in, work, what sixty hours a week and you get this?”

“Look,” said Clint. “You don’t let yourself get mad about this sort of thing. This happens. Day one, you tell these kids they’re in charge of their own future. You give them all the tools and support they need to do a good job. It’s their responsibility. They don’t take charge – or you do the hard work for them, what have they learned, really? I swear I have at least one student a year who gets half-way through their degree before they even step through the doors of the library.” Clint paused. “You know I could go on about this stuff for hours.”

“That way, madness lies,” sighed Darcy. “Is there more coffee?”

“Yeah, there is, and no, you can’t have any. You’ve got a class in half an hour,” said Clint.

Darcy made a strange noise in the back of her throat. “But I’m comfortable now.”

“You look anything but. Go on. Take your PhD to admin and actually submit it.”

“You’re horrible.”

“I will buy you one of those filthy pineapple cocktails in Thor’s bar later as a celebration.”

“Monkey Madness?”

“Is that what it’s called?”

Darcy squared her shoulders and prepared to do her impersonation of Thor. “Lo!” she boomed, thrusting out her empty coffee mug as if it were a cocktail glass. “Darcy, pay attention! See how the light gleams? This cherry – denotes heart. The heart of the drink. Its goodness. To this we add juice – it is pineapple, true. Sweet, wholesome, we add the purity of soul. But here – the Angostura Bitters and the sharp tang of fine spirit – they imbibe an earthy, animalistic energy to the beverage. A primal, nay primate force. We have it! The Madness of Monkeys. Darcy, why are you not paying attention?”

“Yeah, that sounds like him,” said Clint with a grin. “Nice job.”

Darcy shrugged. “Thanks. Spent a lot of time with the old furball. Tried to get him to describe how to mix a Slow Comfortable Screw a couple of weeks back and nearly peed myself laughing.”

Clint’s mind boggled. “Right, enough. Go submit your PhD, then get to class.”

“Right, boss.”

“And Darcy?”

“Yup?”

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” Darcy finally beamed back at him.


	18. Secrets, Lies and Teamwork

That week, Clint taught some of the trickier concepts covered by his History modules: legal representation, ancient mathematics that used a base other than ten, and the separation of chemistry and alchemy. It was unfortunate that all of this stuff had to be taught at approximately the same time, but also a necessity, because there weren’t all that many weeks left before he’d have to start consolidating knowledge in preparation for the exam period.

Applications had already started to trickle in for the next year’s students, so it wasn’t until Friday afternoon that Clint finally had a chance to check the email account set up specifically for the Egg Race. In part, he realised, he just wasn’t that interested in the proceedings when there were still over three months until the big day, and there were far more pressing responsibilities taking up his time. Additionally, he’d delegated management of the Facebook page and Twitter feed to Sam – who honestly seemed keen to do it so that he’d have something else to add to his CV. What that meant, though, was that he’d failed to notice that people had already started to submit applications for their school teams.

Last year, the competition had been very straightforward. The number of teams had been limited by the number of students taking History courses at the university. This year, since the competition was open to all local schools and colleges, they’d had to set things up rather differently. Although not immediately obvious from the poster, the rules and regulations tucked away on the website were very clear about who was allowed to enter a team. And that included that there should only be one team per school. He was already taking an inordinate amount of flak from his students about this. The History school team would ultimately consist of the first group to get their act together and submit their names.

The first school to submit a team, Clint was not surprised to see, was Phil’s school, Twin Pines. Stark was down as Team Representative, and his name was followed by the names of half a dozen students, some of whom Clint vaguely recognised from his conversations with Phil.

The second team came as a real shock, and raised Clint’s blood pressure in such a way that he felt his pulse in his ears. There it was in black and white. The second school to submit a team was from his own university, but the team was from the Business School, team representative: Loki Lauffeson. The form was filled in perfectly and Clint couldn’t see any problems with it – or any way to stop Lauffeson from submitting his own team. It just hadn’t occurred to Clint that this might happen.

He tapped his fingers nervously on the desk and wondered what to do. Call Tony? Not a good idea, because even though this was his baby, Clint’d spend the next few hours listening to Tony rant about it rather than doing anything productive. He sent Tony a quick email, then dashed off to see Pepper before Tony came looking for him.

He hated to interrupt Pepper because she was always so busy. On the plus side, this meant she was also usually in her office, because she was an extremely practical and sensible woman who didn’t schedule unnecessary meetings. Yes, Pepper would know what to do.

He had about eight minutes to talk to her before Tony Stark gave up trying to kick down the door of Clint’s office and came looking for him.

His knocking sounded frantic, even to him. Apparently, it sounded manic to Pepper.

“Not now, Tony,” Pepper called out from the other side of her closed door.

Clint opened the door, which he felt perfectly safe in doing, because he knew that Tony would have done the same thing.

“I said not –“ said Pepper, looking up from her desk. “Oh! Clint! Hi.”

“Can I, er....” said Clint.

“Come on in, close the door,” said Pepper. “What can I do for you?” Pepper put down the pen she was holding and placed the heels of her palms on her desk.

Clint looked around Pepper’s neat, warm office and wondered where to start. “It’s about the Egg Race,” he began.

“Really, Clint? Surely we have months –”

“One team per school,” Clint interrupted. “That’s what the regulations say, right? One team per school?” He nervously ran his hand through the hair at the back of his head and stared down at her.

“Right,” said Pepper. “That’s what we said.”

“Well, Lauffeson’s entered a team for the Business School. Doesn’t that mean that we can’t enter our own team?”

Pepper smiled at him. “Sit down,” she said. “I –“

“Pepper!” Tony’s voice shouted from the other side of the door. “Pepper!” he yelled again as he barrelled into the room.

Clint had been wrong. That had been more like five minutes.

“Oh there you are,” said Tony, looking accusingly at Clint.

“I’m not Pepper,” said Clint, helpfully.

“Close the door and sit down, Tony,” Pepper said firmly, and, Clint reflected, in very much the same tone of voice that Steve used when he wanted Tony to shut up. “I can guess why your here, and I was just about to go through this with Clint.”

Tony looked at Clint in a curious way, but did what he’d been told and sat down next to Clint.

“Lauffeson has submitted his own team for your stupid Egg Race,” said Pepper. “Something I am now deeply regretting making an inter-mural affair, because I have much more important things to be getting on with.”

Tony spluttered incoherently.

“But,” said Pepper, firmly, “If either of you had taken more than five seconds to think this through, you would have realised that our legal department has made this a perfectly reasonable and acceptable thing to do.”

“I don’t see how you can even –” Tony began.

Pepper held up a hand in a ‘stop’ gesture. “I hadn’t finished,” she said. “One team per school, Tony. School. Lauffeson is head of the Business School, I am head of the School of History. Although we are both departments within the same university, we are legally and administratively two separate entities, and therefore, we are both entitled to submit a team.”

“Oh,” said Tony, deflating slightly.

Clint took a deep breath and finally felt his heart rate begin to return to normal levels.

“That also means that if Economics, or Languages, or some hitherto undiscovered of School of Flower Arranging also decide to submit a team, you will welcome them with open arms,” said Pepper.

“But...” said Tony.

“And you will provide them with the same level of support provided to all other schools, and you will not attempt to sabotage their team in any way.”

“But...” said Tony.

“Do I make myself clear?” said Pepper.

“Yeah,” said Tony. “You do.”

“Now get out of here, I need to speak with Clint for a moment,” said Pepper.

When Tony didn’t move from his seat, Pepper leaned forward and stared at him. “Now, Tony,” she said.

“Right, right,” said Tony, standing up and backing out of the room.

Pepper waited until her office door clicked shut before turning to Clint. “Clint,” she said, urgently.

“Yes?”

“If I tell you something, will you swear to keep it to yourself? It’s okay, Tony already knows about it.”

“Er, yes?”

“Well, I’m sure you’re aware that we’ve been experiencing some problems with the IT systems recently.”

“Yeah,” said Clint, unsure where this was going.

Pepper nodded to herself. “Well, it looks like the problem has in part been because we’ve had someone trying to access several of our systems illegally.”

“Right, okay. Not okay,” said Clint.

“Now, we think we’ve been able to prevent further unauthorised access, at least for the time being, but it looks like the system was hacked from other computers within the university network.”

“Seriously?” said Clint. “Do we know which computers were used?”

“Apparently, several computers in the Business School. Or at least, that’s what Jarvis thinks.”

“Naturally,” said Clint.

Pepper nodded. “Now, I’m telling all History staff about this in person rather than putting it in an email, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mail anyone about this, at least for the time being.”

“Of course,” said Clint. “Do we think Lauffeson’s behind this? Or am I reading too much into it?”

Pepper shrugged, and at the same time, there was a knock at her door and Natasha entered. She nodded to Clint, laid a stack of paperwork on Pepper’s desk, and sat down in the chair recently vacated by Tony. Clint recalled Natasha’s earlier mysterious computer hacking abilities and wisely decided not to mention them.

“We don’t know,” said Pepper. She turned to Natasha. “Two minutes? There’s something I just need to talk to Clint about first.”

Natasha looked in the direction of the paperwork she’d just put down and nodded. “It’s all there,” she said.

Pepper turned back to Clint. “If he’s still trying to close us down, I suppose he could be trying to look at admission figures or student assessment criteria in order to build a fresh case against our department.”

Clint frowned.

As he was thinking this through, Natasha turned to him and quite obviously changed the subject. “I hear you had an eventful Valentine’s day,” she said.

“If by ‘eventful’ you mean ‘painful double-date,’ then yeah,” said Clint.

“Steve had a few choice things to say about it,” said Natasha.

“I can imagine,” said Clint. “Phil refuses to be impressed by Stark’s antics. Stark doesn’t seem to know how to cope with that. What about you?” Clint asked Natasha. “Do anything nice for Valentine’s Day?”

“We were out with Bruce,” said Pepper.

“Seriously?” said Clint, remembering where he’d seen Bruce on Valentine’s Day, and who he’d been with. “The three of you? Out together, on the most romantic day of the year?”

“Sure,” said Pepper. “Why not?”

“We went bowling,” said Natasha. “Bruce takes bowling very seriously.” The way she said it, Clint was almost convinced that she was telling the truth.

Pepper reached out across her desk and placed her hand on top of Natasha’s.

“Well apparently,” said Clint. “But just so you know, we did actually see Bruce that evening. And maybe next time you see him, you should mention that ‘bowling’ gave him a nasty case of beard rash.”

“Touché,” said Natasha. She raised her chin slightly and assessed him. For the next few moments, all three of them looked at each other and said nothing.

Clint pushed his chair back and started to stand, intending to leave the office.

“Okay, you’ve had your fun,” said Pepper. “Before you go, Clint, I need to ask you to cover some of Bruce’s classes next week. I’ll send you an email with the details.”

“Is he okay?” said Clint, ignoring, for the moment, just how much more work he’d have to do to make this happen. Pepper’s expression changed, and Clint guessed that she was trying to work out how to convey the information that Bruce had a medical condition without actually telling Clint about it. “We had a chat a while back,” he said. “I know he’s not been well.”

Pepper’s expression softened. “Yes, he’s fine. He’s just undergoing a few more tests. I think they’re adjusting his medication.”

“Okay,” said Clint. More work? No problem.

The following week was a complete nightmare, with Clint trying to cover several of Bruce’s classes in addition to trying to run his own. He barely saw Phil, which made him extraordinarily grumpy. He felt worse because Phil was completely rational, kind and understanding about the situation. He thought that if he’d been in Phil’s shoes he might have wondered whether Clint was getting cold feet about moving in.

Far from it.

They met up in Thor’s bar after work that Friday night and had drinks with the usual crowd before driving back to Clint’s apartment. For once, they were in Clint’s car and Clint was sober while Phil was flirtily drunk in the passenger seat beside him.

The car juddered over a persistent crust of packed snow as Clint ground to a halt in his parking space.

“Not long now,” said Phil, as they got out of the car. He gravitated to Clint’s side and rested his head on Clint’s shoulder.

“No,” said Clint. “As you’ll see as soon as you see what a state my place is in.”

Phil tried to absently nibble on Clint’s earlobe as Clint entered the key code for the main door. “Cut that out,” Clint said, chuckling as he said it. They stumbled up the stairs to Clint’s door (generally faster, easier, and less smelly than taking the elevator), and by the time Clint was fumbling with his front door key, Phil’s head was resting on his shoulder again.

“Love you, you know,” Phil mumbled in Clint’s ear. He tried to kiss Clint’s neck but missed, and planted a wet kiss somewhere in the hair behind Clint’s ear instead.

“You’re drunk,” said Clint, finally getting his door open. “And I love you, too.” He pushed at his door, and it opened reluctantly. Through the light from the hallway, an obstacle course of boxes and packing materials was very apparent.

“Not that drunk,” said Phil, sidling into Clint’s apartment, then sliding along the walls as if this would help him to avoid any obstacles.

Clint chuckled to himself again, closed the door behind them both, and locked up for the night. He navigated past the boxes, congratulating himself for not walking into any of them as he did so. He found Phil in the kitchen, drinking a pint of water. “I’m not that drunk,” Phil repeated. “And I’ve missed you, and we should go to bed.”

“Alright then,” said Clint, taking Phil’s hand and leading him into the bedroom. “You know how much I appreciate straightforward down-to-Earth Phil,” he said, sitting on the bed and taking off his shoes.

“When aren’t I?” said Phil. He stood in front of Clint, placed his hands on Clint’s shoulders, pushed him back flat onto the bed, and straddled him.

Clint awoke the next morning with Phil plastered to his back, an arm slung possessively around his waist. Cramping slightly, he tried to move and discovered that his knee was hanging over the bed. Phil snored loudly in his ear, and held him more tightly. Clint tried to wiggle himself free, which Phil, still fast asleep, seemed to believe was entirely for his benefit. In the end, Clint managed to pull himself out of Phil’s clutches, and rolled out of bed onto the floor.

Phil rolled onto his back and spread himself out across the bed like a starfish.

Clint checked his phone. Eight AM. Terribly early for a Saturday morning, and the fact that he was up and apparently functioning was surely a sign of impending middle age. He pulled on a pair of ratty sweatpants, and went to make coffee for them both. He had an excellent reason to be up at this hour. Today was the day that he officially moved in with Phil. He still had a few days left on his lease, but moving over the weekend made the most sense.

He stumbled around in the kitchen, throwing utensils into a box while he waited for the coffee percolator. When he returned to the bedroom, Phil was awake, sitting up, and with his glasses perched on the end of his nose. Phil smiled at him.

Phil, the smile, the glasses, the generally being naked in his bed – these were things that were pretty much a guaranteed turn-on for Clint.

“Two of my favourite things,” said Phil, looking at Clint and the coffee.

“One of these mugs is mine,” said Clint, deliberately misunderstanding him. He couldn’t resist. He put the mugs down on the nightstand and got back into bed.

When they finally made it out of bed, it was nearly ten AM. Phil started to load up Clint’s car while Clint packed up his few remaining belongings. Moving Clint’s boxes to Phil’s house would probably take most of the day, but at least most of the furniture stayed with his old apartment and wouldn’t need to be shifted. They worked steadily and carefully through the day, stopping only briefly for lunch. The final two journeys were made after dark, and as Clint closed the trunk on his last load of possessions, he looked towards the window of the place that had been his home for the last few years. They were quiet on the drive back to Phil’s, and as Clint posted the envelope containing his door keys through the letterbox of the letting agency, Phil leaned in to him and held him tight.

“Home?” he asked.

“Home,” Clint agreed.


	19. Juggling Practice

Two weeks later, Phil’s house had started to acquire the kind of messy patina that Clint’s apartment had had, and their life – according to Stark – had become ‘tragically domestic’. While secretly overjoyed that neither of them had tried to throttle the other one yet, Clint was desperately snowed under with administrative work, lesson plans, and meetings with students about their assignments. If anything, Phil was even busier than Clint was as his school started the long build up towards end of year exams.

Bruce waved at Clint as they passed each other in the corridor. Clint nodded back, noting the improvement to Bruce’s overall appearance and how he had a spring in his step despite the enormous stack of paperwork that he was carrying.

As he ate his dinner at his desk, Clint checked the forty or so new emails that had arrived in the two hours since he’d last been in his office. Two emails stood out, and one nearly made him choke on his sandwich. The first was an email from his publisher, which could be managed easily enough with a bit of diplomatic bulshitting. His publisher! He had barely got used to using the term. His editor was asking when Clint’s corrected manuscript would be ready. When? He had no idea. He hadn’t checked her previous email to see what corrections were required yet.

The second email was from Pepper, asking whether he had any invoices to submit for travel expenses before the mid-month deadline. For the life of him he couldn’t think why Pepper thought he’d need to book travel for anything, then the sinking feeling finally hit him. He checked his calendar. Twice. There it was in bold type, something he’d been looking at every day for the last month or so but not actually seeing. He was supposed to be speaking at a conference the following week. He was supposed to be giving a paper on the research he’d done that year. Two problems: he’d barely done any research this year. And he hadn’t written a paper. The only thing he’d really researched in any detail over the last six months was the likes and desires of Phil Coulson, and as open-minded as the Historical community usually was, he doubted they’d be open to a paper on the merits of Phil’s ass. He had a week to write a paper.

Plenty of time.

Cue hysterical laughter.

Clint leaned forward slowly and hit his head against the desk. He sent Pepper a begging email, asking her if she or one of her colleagues could please put together some travel options for him for the conference. He worked like a demon for the rest of the day, replying to his publisher with practised ease, and even found time to sketch out a rough idea for his talk while he was eating a sneaky burrito. It was nearly eight PM when he arrived back at the house, relieved and desperate to fall into Phil’s comforting arms. Tonight was a night for collapsing on the couch, watching trash TV, and maybe having a quick fumble in the bedroom before sleep. It wasn’t that their sex life was losing any heat; it was just that they were both nearing exhaustion and desperate for the marginally easier schedule that the Easter vacation would bring.

Clint rested his head against Phil’s shoulder and closed his eyes. Phil forked another portion of noodles into his mouth and stared disconsolately at the TV. The programme was some sort of competition for drag queens, and neither of them was really in the mood for it.

“I have some news,” said Phil, still chewing.

“Me too,” said Clint. “You first.”

“Okay. Two things. Audrey, my ex-wife called.”

“Yeah?”

“They got married.”

“Oh, hey. Congratulations,” said Clint.

“Yeah, that’s what I told them,” said Phil.

“How d’you feel?”

“Okay,” said Phil. “It feels a bit odd.” He shrugged, and Clint’s head wobbled with the motion. “But I’m pleased for them.”

“Yeah.”

Phil reached for the TV remote and started to flick through the channels.

“I can’t watch anything for long,” said Clint, “I’m gonna have to work later.”

“Okay,” said Phil.

Clint watched the TV screen for a few moments and closed his eyes again. “What was the other thing? You said two things?” He listened to fragments of noise and speech as the TV’s audio tried to keep up with Phil’s frantic pressing of the remote buttons.

Phil finally stopped changing channels and a familiar voice burst over the speakers.

“Lost over the Bermuda Triangle?” said Tony Stark.

Clint groaned. “Turn that off, will you?” he said.

The sound died but when Clint opened his eyes, Tony was still on screen, only this time on mute. Dressed as an early aviator, Tony ran around with his arms outstretched in front of a CGI version of Amelia Earhart’s supposed last voyage.

“You’re going to have to work with that guy,” said Clint. “I’m surprised you want more of him.”

“Not a problem,” said Phil, confidently.

“Seriously?”

“I know his tells. Actually, there’s someone on our board of governors who’s remarkably similar.” Phil shrugged again. “How’s his new series going?”

“He’s not mentioned it in a while, which either means that they’ve finished filming, or that they’ve canned the series. Difficult to tell.” It was Clint’s turn to shrug. “If it was actually being broadcast, we’d have received a bunch of anonymous emails by now telling us how wonderful it is. Anyway,” said Clint. “You said you had something else to tell me?”

“Oh yeah,” said Phil. “I spoke to Megan today.”

“Oh yeah? How are they?”

“Fine. They’ll be here on Friday, round about eight.”

“Huh?” said Clint. “They’re visiting?”

“Did you forget?” asked Phil, leaning back slightly so that he could see Clint’s face.

“No,” said Clint defensively.

Phil correctly read Clint’s expression, but didn’t pick him up on it. “They’ve been looking forward to this since Christmas,” Phil added.

“Okay,” said Clint.

“Like we planned. School finishes on Wednesday, you guys finish on Thursday....”

Clint’s mind seemed to turn to sludge. He vaguely remembered a discussion they’d all had over Christmas about a family visit, but what with everything else, it seemed like this was just one more thing he’d forgotten.

What was he going to do with all that crap he hadn’t got round to unpacking yet?

“What’s your news?” said Phil.

“I’m speaking at a conference next week,” Clint blurted.

Phil paused, stared at Clint, and blinked. “That’s next week?” he asked.

Clint nodded slowly. “Uh huh.”

“Sorry. I forgot. You didn’t mention it,” Phil added.

“I forgot,” said Clint.

“You forgot that you were speaking at an international conference?”

“Yeah.”

“You forgot that you were speaking at an international conference next week?” Phil asked again.

“Yeah. I, er... Pepper reminded me this afternoon.”

Phil tried to think of something to say to that and ended up ruffling Clint’s hair instead.

“How’s the paper going?” Phil asked, the corner of his mouth curving up in a smile.

Clint scowled at him.

“That good, huh?” said Phil.

“Shut up,” said Clint, then laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation. He poked Phil in the side. Phil retaliated by attempting to tickle him, which very quickly turned into mutual tickling, groping, and playful wrestling. They tousled on the couch, rolled onto the floor, and ended up chasing each other around the room. Clint cornered Phil and pressed him against the wall, sliding his hands up Phil’s chest and starting to undo the buttons of his shirt. As he struggled to get Phil’s shirt untucked, Phil took the advantage, grasped Clint by the wrists and flipped them so that Clint’s back was against the wall. He raised Clint’s arms above his head and leaned in close to nip playfully at Clint’s neck. One of his legs slid between Clint’s and pressed against him. Clint tensed in Phil’s grip and thrust slowly upwards against Phil’s thigh.

“I’m supposed to be working tonight,” Clint reminded Phil.

“Want me to stop?” said Phil, sucking on Clint’s neck then licking a line up from Clint’s collarbone to his ear.

“Not particularly,” said Clint. He worked his way out of Phil’s grip and slipped his hands into the waistband of Phil’s pants, untucking his shirt. Phil braced himself against the wall and continued to laver Clint’s neck while Clint thrust up against him.

“You know,” said Phil in a hot breathy pant, “this would be easier if we were naked.”

“I’m getting there,” said Clint. “Upstairs?” He slid out from his place against the wall and didn’t turn to check that Phil was following him up the stairs to their bedroom. Phil would always follow him. Phil would always come.

Ten minutes later, they were sticky with sweat as Clint pressed his fingers into Phil. There was lube on Clint’s fingers, lube in Phil’s ass, lube scattered in random dollops on the bed sheets from their foreplay, lube on the pillow, lube liberally coating Clint’s cock, lube on Phil’s nose, and from the feel of it, lube on one of Clint’s eyebrows. Clint withdrew his fingers and held them up for Phil to see.

“Not on me you don’t,” said Phil, raising an eyebrow.

Clint wiped his hand on a towel they kept just for this purpose, then grasped Phil by the soft skin behind his knees even while Phil continued to pretend to be frustrated with him. As Clint slid into him, Phil sighed and Clint leaned forward into a kiss. Clint could either thrust, or kiss. Phil wanted both. Clint drew the kiss out, their tongues tangling for a few seconds while he thrust gently, then breaking the kiss to set up a punishing rhythm for a minute, only to stop and return to the kissing once more. Each time one or other of them seemed close to coming, Clint switched it up until his arms and thighs started to tire and he could take the weight of Phil’s legs no more. When Clint finally thrust down into Phil and allowed him to come, Phil gasped, raising his chin in painful ecstasy as his cock stuttered come over them both, flooding across Phil’s stomach and onto the sheet under him. Phil closed his eyes and gasped again as Clint continued to thrust; the gasps a counterpoint to the wet slapping sounds that Clint’s cock made in his ass.

When Clint finally came, his stomach muscles ached from the relief of it. He leaned in, his wrists and forearms burning from the exercise as he groaned through his release. Phil reached up to cup his cheek and smiled up at him and all thought left him. When Clint eventually summoned enough energy to roll off of Phil and onto the bed beside him, Phil rolled with him and they lay side by side as they gradually cooled down.

Clint woke at three am, fired up his laptop while Phil slept beside him, and wrote the entire first draft of his paper.

The rest of the week passed by so fast it was like a series of vignettes; images that lodged themselves in Clint’s mind. Stark’s office door left open as he and Sam argued through another meeting about the content of Sam’s thesis. Mindie, deep in thought and outwardly fine, traipsing from her lessons to a counselling session with Steve. Fury, standing deep in thought outside his office tucked away in the most inaccessible part of their building, while a timid student tried to pluck up the courage to talk to him. Natasha, striding purposefully down the corridor carrying two lunches. Bruce, seated on a park bench, gazing at the brown twigs of a nearby shrub while checking his blood pressure. A group of seniors, muttering, stressed-out and discontent as they wrote their final marked assessments before the exam period. The rhythm of life at the university was so fast at this time of year. Clint surfed through it, writing his paper, dealing with the enquiries from his publisher, barely stopping for breath until he shut down his computer on Thursday evening and headed home.

He fumbled the key in the lock and the door opened for him.

Phil’s sister Megan was waiting for him inside.

“Megan?” he said. “I thought you weren’t arriving until tomorrow?”

Phil stepped out of the kitchen, a curious expression on his face: a combination of stress, an apology, and gratitude.

“Sorry, I was just telling my brother,” said Megan. “Our landlord decided to fumigate, so we thought, what the hell. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I said it was fine,” said Phil, seeking reassurance.

“It’s fine,” said Clint.

“And hey, I bought take-out,” said Megan. At that, Clint smiled.

As he kicked off his shoes he heard the pounding sound of feet which preceded the appearance of Phil’s nieces. Emma and Hayley tore round the corner and enveloped Clint in a hug. Behind them, Pippa sidled into view in the doorway and gave Clint a wave.

“Hey, uncle Clint,” said Emma.

“Hi, kiddo,” said Clint.

“Come on,” said Hayley, pulling on her sister’s sweater. “We’re missing it. We’re watching your friend on TV, uncle Clint.”

“I’m sorry,” said Phil, deeply apologetic. “They saw the trailer for the new series and one thing led to another. It’s a Stark marathon.” He looked pained.

“We made popcorn,” said Pippa.

Clint groaned theatrically, but with real feeling. He vaguely remembered something Pepper had said about a promo for the Egg Race due to be shown over Easter, which reminded him all over again about how much admin he had left to do. Still enveloped in a hug from Emma and Hayley, he sank down to his knees then lay on the floor. “Shoot me now,” he said.

“You loooove him,” said Hayley.

“No, you love him,” said Emma.

Clint and Phil groaned simultaneously.

“There better be plenty of beer in the house,” said Clint.


	20. Fly, My Pretties

By the middle of April, the conference seemed like a distant memory. Very little seemed to have changed in Clint’s life, except that Clint had completed the changes to his manuscript and sent them off to his publisher. Of course, since he’d done that, he hadn’t heard a thing about when – or if – his book was actually going to press.

With the first warm days of spring, class attendances started to drop as students started to anticipate the deadlines of their end-of-year projects and the exams. Clint regularly reminded his students that they could talk to him if they needed any help or advice, but few ever took him up on this. He especially kept an eye out for the trouble-makers and the kids who were struggling for whatever reason, since he’d been an active member of both of those groups himself. And if he happened to have made Tanner’s Stores his regular place to stop for groceries on the way home, well what of it? As for other methods of monitoring his students’ well-being, Steve had long since grown weary of reminding Clint that he could not intervene in their personal lives. It was frustrating, but the only option left open to Clint was to assume that they were okay unless he heard otherwise. Maybe he’d just keep checking anyway.

Friday afternoon’s staff meeting had included twenty minutes on the preparations for the Egg Race. This had consisted of a five-minute summary from Clint on how there were now seven teams registered, including the team from the History School and Lauffeson’s team from the Business School. Natasha had then spoken briefly and passionately about how she personally wanted to disembowel every student at St Hugh’s, her allotted school, on the grounds that everyone there seemed to have more testosterone than brain cells. The remainder of the meeting was taken up by Stark, who explained in detail just how well the trailers for his new series had been received – including the sixty-second advert for the school competition. Stark’s song of praise to himself ended only when a shoe was thrown at him from Fury’s side of the room. The real implications of all of this, though, seemed to be that as far as anyone could tell, the History School was still safe. Community support was strong, and Pepper could not have been more pleased about it.

Back in his office, Clint turned his chair so that he could stare out of the window instead of looking at his admin. His windowsill needed dusting and his pot plant was dead. All along the windowsill, someone had lined up dead flies, positioning them in little groups that were far too organised to be natural. Clint suspected Natasha.

Clint stuck a thumb in his mouth, then swiped it across one of the panes of glass. It was filthy, and now so was his thumb.

There was a park bench directly across the courtyard from his office, and he noticed a couple of students lounging against it as they watched Pepper walked by. It looked as though she was heading home early, no doubt taking work with her.

Clint watched lights flicker on and off in the offices on the other side of the courtyard; saw other people packing up and heading home. Clint only knew most of these people by sight as they were members of other departments. This was somewhat of a relief: it would have felt strange to look out directly over and into the offices of his colleagues.

As the sun started to set behind the building, a glint of something metallic on the roof opposite caught his eye. Clint’s first instinct was to call Pepper to ask her if she knew anything about this, but since she’d left for the day, there wouldn’t have been much point. He stood up and rubbed at his window with his sleeve. He could see more details, and what he saw filled him with dread.

There was a student on the roof. And it was someone he knew.

Clint grabbed his phone and ran for the door. His feet skidded across the linoleum as he tore round a corner, phone ringing in his ear.

“What?” said Tony Stark.

Clint said the first thing that came into his head. “Did you agree to this?”

“What?” said Tony.

“Your student – on the roof,” Clint barked into the phone. He vaulted down three steps and ran along another stretch of corridor. The building was U-shaped, so all he needed to do to reach the roof that he could see from his office was follow the corridor around, then head up.

“What?” Tony said again, only louder.

“It’s Sam,” Clint shouted. “He’s on the roof.”

“What? I didn’t.... He didn’t.”

Clint headed for the stairs. “Directly above the admin offices. Get up there,” said Clint, and ended the call. Somehow, he managed to slide his phone back into his pocket as he threw himself around a turn in the staircase and on up. Access to the roof was via a door at the end of a corridor. It seemed that hardly anyone knew where this door led, but Clint, who’d spent many happy hours exploring the building as a student, knew this building better than most.

It was around here somewhere. Yes, there it was. The small black metal door that led out onto the walkway that crossed the roof to where the air conditioning vents were situated. It was usually kept locked and only opened for routine maintenance in the spring and fall. It was open now.

Clint ran through it, the door slamming closed behind him. He sped across the walkway as fast as he dared, the old metal flexing slightly under his feet. As he rounded a corner, Sam was ahead of him, a puzzled look on his face, and some experimental contraption held lightly in one hand.

The reason for Sam’s expression became apparent. Clint wasn’t the first member of staff to arrive. Bruce, whose office was a few doors down from Clint’s, had got there before him.

So okay, this situation was not what Clint had been expecting at all.

Sam was staring at Bruce. “You okay?” he asked.

Bruce, midway between them but with his back to Clint, nodded firmly, but at the same time, he doubled forward and placed his hands on his knees. “Stay back!” he barked.

Behind Clint, the door to the roof slammed open again, and Tony thundered out onto the gantry. Clint flung out an arm to stop him.

“Stay back,” said Bruce again. “Please.”

Clint looked over to Sam to see if he could work out what was going on. In Sam’s hands was a carefully sculpted glider: presumably some sort of scale model that he was making as part of his PhD research.

Tony tutted. “I thought I said you couldn’t test that up here,” said Tony, as if nothing else currently mattered. He tried to move forward again, and once again, Clint held him back.

“I said stay back,” said Bruce. This time, his voice held a croak of exasperation.

Clint’s gaze fell from Sam to Bruce, and he looked at him properly this time. Bruce’s breathing was rapid, shallow. His skin seemed to have taken on a strange pinkish hue, and the veins on his hands were standing out like cords. So, too, were the veins on his neck. Doubled over as he was, he somehow also looked larger than life. Finally, Bruce fumbled in his inside jacket pocket and gave himself a shot with something that looked like an epi pen.

“We can help,” said Clint.

“Just give me a minute,” said Bruce. Beyond all expectation, he was starting to sound better already.

Tony tutted again. “You idiot,” he shouted, looking at Bruce. This told Clint more than anything else that Tony was fully aware of Bruce’s medical condition and what his limitations were.

“We should get him to the nurse,” said Clint.

“Yeah, like that’ll help,” Tony muttered. He turned his attention back to Sam. “Sam, pack up your gear. Come on, we’ll test that out at my place.”

This snapped Sam out of his daze. “Seriously? At the manor? Are you serious?”

“Yeah, come on. Pack your shit,” said Tony, and beckoned to him. To Clint he muttered, “look after Bruce?”

Sam put the model down and started to put all of the things he’d brought onto the roof into a plastic crate. This gave Bruce time to get his breath back, and by the time Sam was ready to leave, Bruce was upright again, his hands and neck less pink but still far from normal. Sam walked past Bruce with his eyes steadfastly locked on Tony. “The manor, seriously?” he said.

Tony slung an arm across Sam’s shoulder and steered him towards the door. “You know I’ve never been there before, right?” said Sam.

“Got all the cool toys,” said Tony, opening the door and letting Sam out ahead of him. As the door clicked shut behind them both, Clint realised that Tony hadn’t helped Sam carry anything.

Then it was just Bruce and Clint. Clint looked at Bruce, but didn’t say anything.

“I’m okay,” said Bruce, standing upright now.

“Right,” said Clint.

“Honestly,” said Bruce. “It’s under control. I just... wasn’t expecting that.”

“Well, who’d timetable a mad dash out onto the roof,” said Clint, and twisted the corner of his mouth up into a smile.

“I thought, well. The same thing you did, I guess. I saw Tony’s student up here and assumed....”

“That he was about to jump,” said Clint.

“Well, yeah.”

“Because that would be the obvious thing to do if you were one of Tony’s students?” said Clint, smiling properly now.

“The thought had occurred to me,” said Bruce. Finally, he turned to face Clint and smiled back. “I’m okay now,” he said.

“Come on,” said Clint. “Let’s head back down. Just let me turn off my computer and we can head off to Thor’s.”

“Oh, hey, I didn’t mean to...”

“Relax,” said Clint. “I think after that little surprise we could both do with a drink. Doesn’t have to be alcoholic. What d’you say?”

“Sure,” said Bruce.

Clint smiled again, and walked towards the door. Bruce followed him.

“How is everything?” said Clint as they started to walk back down the corridor. The question was vague enough for Bruce to answer or ignore it however he liked.

“It’s fine,” said Bruce. “I just have to watch my blood pressure.”

Clint looked at him quizzically, but said nothing.

“Basically, don’t get me angry,” Bruce added.

“That’s a metabolic thing, is it?” said Clint.

“No,” said Bruce, and shut down that line of questioning.

Fair enough.

Clint stood in Bruce’s doorway as Bruce shut down his computer for the night, then they both went to Clint’s office and Clint did the same. As Clint swept the things on his desk into his bag, he finally plucked up the courage to ask Bruce a question he’d been meaning to ask him for the last two months.

“So, are you seeing anyone at the moment?”

Bruce looked at him quizzically. “Why do you ask?”

Clint turned off his monitor and slung his bag over his shoulder. “’Cos we saw you out with someone,” he said.

“Oh, right,” said Bruce, and rubbed a hand through the short hair at the back of his head. “Well.” He paused. “More than one person. Off and on.”

“You’re seeing a few people, or you have been seeing a few people?” Clint asked. He gestured to indicate that he was ready to leave the office.

“Both?” said Bruce, and smiled. “Several people simultaneously, but infrequently.”

“Oh,” said Clint. “Well, you did say you wanted to make a few changes.”

“I did,” said Bruce.

They walked out to the car park in companionable silence.

“See you in the bar?” said Clint, when they reached his car.

“Can you give me a lift?” said Bruce. “I’m on my bike, but I’d rather not use that right now.”

“Sure,” said Clint, and opened the car doors. Bruce slid into the passenger seat and Clint tossed his bag into the back, where it landed with a thud beside a cardboard box labelled ‘filing’, and various bits of junk that had been there since Christmas.

They made the first part of the journey in silence; Bruce gazing out of the passenger-side window into the fading light, obviously lost in thought.

“I went to the doctor last year, and, well, he told me I needed to make some changes or things wouldn’t end up that good,” said Bruce after a while.

“Okay,” said Clint.

“So I decided to make a few other changes while I was at it. Try something new.”

“I get that,” said Clint.

“I guess you would call it a poly relationship?” said Bruce, trying the word out for size.

“Okay.”

Bruce shrugged. “We used to call it something else. Anyway. The school... you know. Some people wouldn’t understand. So we’re keeping it quiet.”

“Okay,” said Clint again.

“Out of interest,” said Bruce. “Who’d you see me with?”

“That Barnes guy. Bucky.”

“Huh.”

“Yup,” said Clint.

It was a short distance from the school to Thor’s bar. Clint indicated the turn and pulled into the parking lot. “I get it,” said Clint, as they got out of the car and trudged the short distance to the bar. “I live with a high school principal. I get the whole not being out at work thing. Trust me, I get it. Half the board of directors knows Phil got divorced from his wife last year, so I’m... invisible.”

Bruce reached out and touched Clint lightly on the shoulder. “Do you mind?” he said.

Clint shrugged, and entered the bar. As they entered, Darcy, slumped at the counter, stood up. “Prof-man. Biceps,” she said. “The usual?”

“Please,” said Bruce.

“Yeah, thanks,” said Clint. “You’re looking well.”

Darcy nodded in Bruce’s direction. “Did you tell him?” she asked.

Clint did a double-take as Darcy poured Clint’s beer and placed it in front of him. Surely she couldn’t mean that she was one of the people that Bruce was in a poly relationship with? Surely... no.

“No,” said Bruce.

“Aw,” said Darcy.

“What?” said Clint.

“Got the date for my Viva,” said Darcy.

“Oh, thank god for that,” said Clint, in a rush.

Darcy and Bruce looked at him with amusement, then Bruce let out a short belt of a laugh, apparently guessing where Clint’s mind had gone.

“Didn’t think it was that funny,” said Darcy, passing Bruce his drink.

“Not that,” said Bruce.

“Well, that clears that up,” said Darcy. Unperturbed, she added, “It’s at the end of May. So if I pass, there will be beaucoup drinks and I should be able to graduate this summer. If I don’t pass, there will be beaucoup drinks and we can pass out here. You’re invited. To the drinks that is. Not to the Viva, ‘cos that would be weird.”

“Okay,” said Clint. “Who’s on your panel?”

“’Tasha and Fury. And Xavier as external examiner.”

“Seriously?” said Clint.

“Tony has a crush on him,” Bruce told her, with a sly smile.

“Xavier? No way,” said Darcy.

“We think it has something to do with the wheels,” said Clint.

“I thought we decided it was a bald thing,” said Bruce.

“Well, I’ll be sure to mention that in a way that will not be at all embarrassing,” said Darcy.

“You do that,” said Bruce.

As Bruce and Darcy talked nonsense about Tony – a common form of stress-relief and something that was always easy to do – Clint’s mind went back to Bruce’s earlier question. How did he feel about Phil not being out at his school? Well, he understood it, obviously. Totally. And he respected Phil’s decision. But at the same time, they’d been together for six months. They were living together, for crying out loud. It would be nice if he was the one people associated with Phil, rather than someone now married to someone else. Was that really too much to ask?

Tonight, poor Phil was far too stressed out worrying about other things to discuss it. He was missing out on their evening in the bar because he was snowed under with preparations for the exams. Clint mulled the situation over while watching Thor offer Darcy a sample of a new type of bar snack. For now, he’d just have to put the idea to one side and hope that a solution presented itself.


	21. Start your Engines

Clint’s first meeting with the students that would form his team for the race was a little disconcerting.

The grey headmistress he’d met several months before was nowhere to be seen, and instead, any responsibility had been delegated to someone who was possibly the most inept teacher that Clint had ever encountered. Worse – the students also knew it.

“I’m Charlie,” said the young man, meeting Clint in the corridor and thrusting out a hand for him to shake.

“Clint,” said Clint, grasping what turned out to be a very wet and clammy palm.

“We’re in here,” said Charlie, leading him into a freezing cold room, devoid of everything except for a dozen cheap plastic chairs and the half a dozen students who would comprise the team.

Two of the students sat deep in conversation and didn’t look up when they entered. Of the remaining students, one sighed loudly upon seeing Charlie, and another rolled his eyes. They were not off to a good start.

Charlie introduced Clint, and asked the students to tell Clint their names: a sure-fire indicator that Charlie had no idea who these people were, and was so poorly organised he hadn’t thought to bring a print-out of the team sign-up sheet. Clint took a deep breath, slid his bag from his shoulder, and took out his own copy of the list. Charlie eyed him warily, then instantly demurred to Clint’s willingness to take charge.

“Sean,” said Clint, looking up and into the eyes of the student he was almost sure had introduced himself as Sean not two minutes before.

“Yup?” said Sean.

“You’re team captain? Right?”

“Uh, okay,” said Sean, looking at his friends.

Clint cast a wary eye over at Charlie, who was now checking something on his phone. He sighed to himself and resolved to ditch Charlie as soon as possible.

“Great,” said Clint. “Do you think you could run through the team’s ideas for the race?” Clint kept his question deliberately vague, not wanting to overly pressure the young man.

The student to Sean’s left – George, Clint remembered, looked over at Sean and shrugged. The students finally started to drift over to the semi-circle of chairs and sit down.

Clint looked over at the whiteboard on the wall and saw that it had no markers, and also noted that the school – or Charlie – had not provided any way for them to make notes. “Charlie,” said Clint. “Do you think you could get us some paper? Pens? Some markers for the whiteboard?”

“I’m not supposed to leave the class unattended,” said Charlie. Then, seeing the expression on Clint’s face, added, “But I’m sure that’ll be okay.” He scurried out of the classroom and Clint closed the door behind him.

It may have been Clint’s imagination, but the tension seemed to leave the room as soon as Charlie did. Clint counted to five, then pulled his personal supply of whiteboard markers out of his bag. Tom, the student who’d earlier sighed when seeing which teacher they’d been allocated, gave a surprised bark of laughter.

“Okay, let’s get started,” Clint began.

It shouldn’t have been that way, but very quickly, the students were all on Clint’s side – a team united against Charlie.

Sean sat forward in his seat, and dragged out some notes he’d made about their design. As he spoke, Clint sketched out the team’s design on the board.

“It’s just an aqueduct,” said Sean. “We thought – the simpler the design the better, right?” Standing beside Sean and obviously his friend, George nodded, but across the room, Tom scowled. Apparently Tom wanted a rocket-powered, jet-fuelled alternative.

“We were thinking - make it out of, er, guttering, with one end held up higher than the other so the water flows down. We’ll put one end on stilts or something. The water tank sits at the top end. We take a bung out of the tank and the water flows down the pipes, then we float the eggs in the water. They go down the gutter and land in a bucket at the far end,” Sean finished. “It’s kind of lame. We can work on it.”

“It’s okay,” said Clint.

Charlie came back into the room, carrying some notepads and pens. He took one look at the design that Clint was drawing on the board and sat down without saying anything. Clint noticed that Charlie didn’t hand out the notepads he’d brought with him.

“I forgot I had a pen in my bag,” said Clint, unnecessarily. He looked back towards Sean. “Yeah, that sounds alright,” he reaffirmed. He finished his drawing – a tank up high on one side of the board, pipe work gradually angling down, and a bucket at the other end. He hastily sketched in some supports along the length of the design.

“It’s lame,” said Tom. “I don’t know why we’re bothering.”

“Prizes, genius,” said a student whose name, Clint thought, was Jamie.

“You’re right in that the simplest designs are often the best,” said Clint, and Sean nodded in gratitude. “It certainly helps that there are fewer working parts to go wrong. If you were using a pump instead, and it broke down at the start of the race, you’d have to fix it and still get your eggs to the other end of the course within the time limit.” This explanation seemed to mollify Tom somewhat. Clint shrugged to himself and continued. “Okay. Something we should consider before building anything though, is whether there might be any problems with this design.” Clint phrased this as a statement rather than a question, again, trying to keep the session as stress-free as possible.

“We have to join the drainpipes together,” said Chloe. “And I guess they might break or leak.”

“Okay,” said Clint. “That’s good. What about the water?” Clint had seen at the start that this design would only work if the tank was positioned on top of something to keep it up higher than the rest of their equipment, but he had to let the team figure this out for themselves.

“What about it?” said George.

“We have to make sure there’s enough water to float all the eggs,” said Jamie. “And that there’s enough to get all the eggs from one end to the other in three minutes.”

The session continued in this vein, the students gradually becoming more confident about what they were setting out to do. It became painfully apparent that they’d had no assistance whatsoever up until now, and were only just starting to warm to the project. Chloe and George brought out books containing pictures of aqueducts, and they discussed their inspiration for the design, and how they could improve on it. In turn, Clint brought out his laptop, and showed them a few archaeological sites that they might want to think about. Charlie, now at the back of the class, hastily made notes and nodded to himself.

As the session drew to a close, Sean agreed to supply Clint with a list of the materials that they thought they’d need for the following session. After all, they only had a few more sessions like this together, and the sooner they started to build something the better. Clint didn’t mention that a lot of what happened next would be trial and error. Part of the real fun of this exercise would be working together and finding this out for themselves. As Clint drove home, he spared a thought for his colleagues, all of whom would be having similar experiences with their allotted schools this week. It would no doubt make their Friday evening session in the bar extremely cathartic.

Most of all, he spared a thought for Phil, who would have to work with Tony Stark.

He tried not to let the Race get in the way of teaching. Mind you, the week that contained the last days of April and the first days of May was also the last week of classes, so it was a useful diversion from thoughts of exams.

He handed out feedback forms in every class he taught that week. The idea was that students could rate his classes based on how much they enjoyed his teaching and the course material, and the department could use this information to make changes to a course, and maybe also use it as an excuse to get rid of staff if they were underperforming. Unfortunately, the forms didn’t work. What usually happened was that the students who hadn’t done the reading found their lessons indecipherable, and the ones that had done the work discovered that they’d learned something. Surely even the worst administrative department didn’t need a form to work that out. From Clint’s perspective, handing out the forms always made him sad. It felt like he was saying ‘that’s it, there’s no more for you to learn,’ when what he really wanted to say was ‘just as I’m getting to know you, it’s time to let you go.’ Clint was maybe a bit too sentimental about the whole thing.

Finally, the days were warm enough that Clint could take his lunch breaks outside and not get suckered into answering emails instead. It took approximately two minutes from the time he sat down and started to unwrap his sandwich for Natasha and Steve to arrive and sit on either side of him.

“I’m going to kill them all,” said Natasha, by way of a greeting. As Clint and Steve turned to stare at her, she opened a small container of carrot and celery sticks and stabbed one into a tub of hummus.

“Okay,” said Clint, since they were all used to this sort of talk from Natasha.

“They are a cancer on the face of humanity and should be eradicated,” she added.

“I thought you liked celery,” said Clint, before his brain caught up with his mouth.

Natasha crunched her first victim and stared at him.

“And ‘they’ are?” said Steve.

“The students at St Hugh’s,” said Natasha.

“Oh,” said Clint, realising that he was about to hear another rant about the Race.

Steve smiled to himself. “I like mine.”

“You would. They’re your students,” Natasha scowled. “Why d’you give me this bunch of imbeciles, Barton?”

“Because Steve, as you reminded us, has his own students, Pepper has our students from the History School, Bruce would have some sort of breakdown if I gave him St Hugh’s, Fury would in all probability have them killing each other, Tony would be some sort of god-awful enabler, and I didn’t want them.” Clint smiled. “Anyway, I thought you’d be best at keeping them in line. What’s the matter?”

Natasha scowled and crunched a carrot stick. “They’re not taking it seriously.”

“So?” said Clint.

“Give them time,” said Steve. Steve, ever optimistic where human nature was concerned, smiled at her and took his glasses off to clean them. The overall effect was both frustrating and endearing.

“They were trying to set fire to water,” said Natasha.

“Sounds pretty serious to me,” said Steve.

“It’s supposed to be fun. And educational. Educational fun,” said Clint.

“What are you both, twelve?” said Natasha. “Sorry but... Clint? What the hell are you eating?”

Steve put his glasses back on and leaned over Clint’s shoulder to get a better look. He whistled. “That’s an actual sandwich. Wow.”

“Who are you and what have you done with Clint Barton?” said Natasha.

“Phil made it,” said Clint, defensively.

Natasha’s scowl vanished and she smiled minutely. “Much more of this and I won’t be able to call you Burrito-Belly Barton. Makes a change from the rubbish you usually eat.”

“Tell me about it,” said Clint. “This one’s got green stuff in it and everything.” He paused. “I’m sorry about St Hugh’s though.”

“We can still disqualify them, presumably,” said Steve.

“Yeah,” said Clint. “If they don’t meet the regulations.”

Natasha’s face went blank at this, so Clint let that topic of conversation slide.

“Sam’s on the roof again,” said Steve, after a few minutes.

Clint peered up at the roof of the building opposite and caught a flash of something shiny moving up near the vents for the air conditioning units.

“I knew about it this time,” said Clint. “He’s testing out his glider prototype. I had to send an email to the students asking them not to use the courtyard this lunchtime. Tony’s supposed to be up there too.”

“Heaven help us,” said Steve.

They watched as a small aerodynamic shape was launched off the roof opposite. It soared up slightly in an updraft, revealing itself to be a glider with wings like a bird. After a few seconds, one of the wings started to fold in on itself, and the glider started to spiral, twirling round in smaller and smaller circles until it crashed into the ground.

“Ouch,” said Clint.

Stark ran out into the courtyard, shouting into his phone as he did so.

“Yup,” said Tony. “Bits all over the place. Get down here.” He terminated the call and walked over to them, leaving the smashed glider where it was.

“Shouldn’t you help clean that up?” said Steve.

“Not my research,” said Tony, with a shrug. He reached out and took the sandwich out of Steve’s hand, took a large bite, then handed it back. Steve looked slightly annoyed, but hardly surprised. “I know,” said Tony, pre-empting Steve. “I left mine in my office.”

Sam appeared in the courtyard, a plastic crate in his arms. He started to collect up the pieces of glider. He didn’t look disappointed – quite the opposite in fact – as he examined the pieces and checked to see where the structure had fractured.

“Wanted a word, Barton,” said Tony, snapping Clint out of his daydream.

“Huh?” said Clint.

“Gonna have to re-think my schedule for the next coupla weeks. Thought maybe Sam could stand in for me over at Twin Pines. What d’ya think? Be good experience for him.” Tony shrugged again, the way he usually did when he wanted to slip a bad idea past someone.

“What?” said Clint. “No way.”

“Why not?” said Tony. “I’m kind of busy with...”

“Absolutely not,” said Clint. “’Tony Stark’s Egg Race’? The race with your face all over the posters all round the school?”

“...the TV crew, and doing the voice-overs for the show,” continued Stark, talking over the top of Clint.

Steve sighed, and Natasha settled in for the long haul.

“And at the very least, it should be me getting involved with the students at this school rather than Pepper. The way we’ve done it the last few years. Get Pepper to handle the Twin Pines mob.”

“Pepper would have my ass in a sling,” said Clint. “She’s put in a ton of hours already.”

Sam finished collecting up the pieces of his glider and walked over to them, plastic crate in his arms.

“And that’s not to mention this,” said Tony, picking one of the pieces of Sam’s glider out of the crate and waggling it in front of Clint’s face. “I know you were involved in that debacle of getting me to spend more time with my PhD students.”

“Student singular,” said Sam, under his breath. “And he wonders why.”

Tony turned towards Sam, and raised an eyebrow. “I’m too busy,” he said again.

“No,” said Clint. “Absolutely not.”

“Enough!” barked Steve, and Tony goggled at him as if surprised.

“Okay,” said Clint. “You’ve had your fun. What’s this really about?”

Tony’s mouth flapped as he tried to cobble together another excuse.

“Phil won’t let Tony have his own way,” said Steve, helpfully.

“That’s not it,” said Tony. “Not it at all.”

“O...kay,” said Clint. “So what is it?”

Steve finished the last of his sandwich and scowled at Tony. “That’s it. Trust me, I’ve been hearing about this all week. Coulson this, Coulson that.”

“I have not been invoking the Coulson,” said Tony, crossing himself.

“Uh-huh,” said Natasha.

“Say his name three times and he turns up,” said Steve. “Apparently.”

“And that’s the other thing,” said Tony, even though he hadn’t told anyone what the first thing was yet.

“Tony doesn’t know how to deal with someone who regularly says no to him,” said Steve.

“Which tells me rather more about your sex life than I ever wanted to hear,” said Natasha.

“Tony can’t cope with someone saying no when there’s no sex at the end of it,” Steve clarified.

“Not listening," said Natasha.

Tony made a noise in the back of his throat which was probably meant to be another objection, while he worked out whether voicing that objection would determine whether there was sex at the end of the evening or not.

Clint stared directly at Stark. “Are you saying that my boyfriend leaves you frustrated and unfulfilled?” he said.

Natasha chuckled evilly.

“No!” said Stark, now starting to back off. “I mean, yes!” he added.

“Is it always like this?” Sam asked Steve. “How do any of you guys ever manage to get any work done?”

Clint smiled. “Generally we rally round.”

“When the common cause is annoying Tony,” said Natasha.

“The horror,” said Tony. “You,” he said, pointing a finger in Clint’s direction. “Get back to work.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” said Clint.

“Okay, I’m done,” said Steve, standing up and brushing crumbs from his shirt. “Tony. Walk me back to my office?” This was not a question.

“Gladly,” said Tony.

Steve reached out and unselfconsciously took Tony’s hand. Tony grasped it willingly and allowed himself to be led back towards the main doors. As they reached the steps, he turned back round to face them, but before he could say anything, Natasha stood up.

“I know. We’re all terrible people. Horrible to work with,” she said.

“Nothing can compare with the horror of having to work with your boyfriend, Barton,” shouted Tony. He flung the door open and stepped through. As it closed behind him, Clint let out a sigh.

“You got a minute?” asked Sam, finally placing his crate on the ground.

“That’s my cue,” said Natasha, standing up to leave.

“Sure,” said Clint.

“Actually, would you mind staying?” said Sam. “You’ve both had problems with IT, right?”

“Yes,” said Natasha.

“What’s up?” said Clint.

“I could do with some advice. You remember about a month or so back we had some glitches with the IT systems?” said Sam.

“Yeah,” said Clint, as Natasha nodded.

“Have you had any problems recently?”

“No,” said Clint.

“You might wanna check that,” said Sam.

“Is the online class register screwing things up again?” said Clint.

“No. The ticketing system for the race.”

Clint’s heart sank. One of the unforeseen problems with the race now that it was open to several schools rather than just the one was that the number of spectators had to be carefully managed. To do this, they were using a simple online ticketing system which Sam and Clint jointly monitored. Clint hadn’t checked it in a while, but the last time he’d looked, the tickets were being taken up in a gradual and predictable way.

“What’s up?” said Clint.

“Maybe I’m just being paranoid, maybe it’s a bug in the system,” said Sam.

“What is it?” said Natasha.

“Well, last night, someone was trying to book a block of seats. I mean, way more tickets than we’re allocating to each family. Instead of the system allocating seats next to each other, it was doing weird stuff like allocating only even-numbered seats. This person booked then cancelled their seats three times before giving up. I mean, I sent them an email and fixed it, but if I hadn’t been checking the site at the time I would probably have missed it. I checked the system again this morning and someone else has done the same thing – tried to book another block – and the system has allocated only odd-numbered seats. Maybe that’s what they want, but no one wants a single seat between two people from the same group. Am I being paranoid?”

“I don’t know,” said Natasha. “It is possible that someone’s trying to break the system.”

“It is only a shareware ticketing program,” said Sam. “Can you have a look at this for me?”

“I can,” said Natasha, “but the person you really need to speak to is Jarvis.”

“Don’t know him,” said Sam.

“He’s our resident IT and admin guru,” said Clint. “Though I can’t say I’ve actually met him.”

“I’ll give you his number,” said Natasha. “In the mean time, I’ll have a word with Pepper.” She prepared to leave.

“While I think of it, both of you might want to check the Twitter feed as well. If you get a chance,” said Sam. “Sorry, but I can only afford to spend so much time on this.”

“Why?” said Natasha.

“I’ll have word with Darcy,” said Clint, who couldn’t get the hang of Twitter. “What’s up?”

“Just some unfortunate hashtags,” said Sam. At Clint’s bemused expression, he added, “So I’ll have a word with Darcy.” He nodded at them both, picked up his plastic crate full of pieces of broken glider and headed back inside.

“I miss the days when school was just about learning stuff,” said Clint.

“What hellish type of school were you at?” said Natasha.


	22. Disco Fever

Clint eased himself into the house, careful to not make a sound as the door clicked closed behind him. It was late and he was more than a little wasted: the result of yet another Friday evening of drinking with colleagues, this time to celebrate the end of classes for the academic year and the start of the revision period. Unfortunately, once again, Phil had not been able to attend, snowed under as he was with school exam papers.

Clint plastered himself to the wall like a polar explorer navigating a crevasse. There was a tricky moment when he lost his grip and the table in the hallway jumped out at him, then he was past it, safely standing next to the coat rack. He slid his jacket down both arms at once and got caught up in it. As he jumped up and down and thrashed about trying to shake his arms free, he twisted and stumbled backwards, at which point he finally collided with the hall table, which was somehow now directly behind him. The table clattered and bashed into the wall and so did Clint, the back of his head hitting the wall before his feet gave out and he slid to the ground.

“Oops,” he said.

Phil appeared framed in the doorway of the living room and looked down at him, an affectionate yet exasperated expression on his face.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,” said Clint, wriggling and still trying to take off his jacket.

“I wasn’t asleep,” said Phil. “I’m in the living room. Which is not where I sleep.”

“Okay,” said Clint.

Phil scrubbed a hand down his face. “Or at least, it’s not where I usually sleep. You need a hand up?”

“Nah, I’m good,” said Clint. He wriggled around and finally got one arm free.

“Well, in that case, would you like some tea? I feel like I need something. Something non-alcoholic.”

“Sure.”

Phil stepped past him into the kitchen, and by the time Clint had finally taken off his jacket and made it into an upright position, Phil was rummaging around in a cupboard looking for teabags while the kettle came to a boil.

“These are the special ones from Bruce, I warn you,” said Phil.

“I’ve just had some of Darcy’s special ones,” said Clint. “Not tea,” he added for clarification, waggling his eyebrows.

“Truly, you know no fear,” said Phil, deadpan. “Also, I know you’re being smutty with the double entendres because you’re drunk, so you can stop that.” Phil sighed.

“Sorry,” said Clint, plastering himself against Phil’s back and wrapping his arms round him while Phil tried to make tea. “I love you,” he added, his mouth hot and wet against Phil’s ear.

“I’m sorry too,” said Phil, deflating. “I wish I’d been there tonight. Probably best if you don’t go into the living room. There’s paperwork all over the place.”

“Okay, I won’t mess it up,” said Clint. “How’s it going?”

Phil reached over his shoulder and mussed Clint’s hair. “Not good. But I’m getting there. So what did I miss?”

“Not much,” said Clint. “Usual stuff. Students in a panic about their work. Oh, and apparently I’ve been volunteered for sentry duty at the school ball in a coupl’a weeks. I’m a bouncer. I’m bouncing.”

“Really,” said Phil.

“In a tux,” said Clint. “I’ll be bouncing.” He rubbed himself up against Phil’s back, maybe dribbled in his ear a little bit. “Doing that thing where you stand around and make sure the kids aren’t spiking the punch. Guard duty. Forgot the word. You know the thing.”

“Supervising?” said Phil.

“Yeah, that,” said Clint. “That’s it. I look great in a tux.”

“I’m sure you do,” said Phil. “Here, have some tea.”

“We should go on holiday when this is all over,” said Clint. “Spend some time together.”

“That’d be nice,” said Phil.

“Been neglecting you.”

Phil shrugged. “The nature of our jobs. Don’t sweat it. But a holiday would be nice. However, my parents still want us to visit.”

“Oh, yeah, that,” said Clint. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to meet Phil’s folks, it just seemed like too big a deal to be thinking about right now. “Love you,” he added, feeling that that was generally an acceptable answer to anything. He picked up his tea and put it to his lips, but then accidentally poured some of it down his shirt instead.

“Yeah, love you too,” said Phil, picking up his own tea and taking a sip. “By the way, you have a letter.” He gestured with his head to an expensive-looking envelope sitting on the counter. The last time Clint had seen an envelope that ominous it had contained Phil’s divorce papers. Phil noted Clint’s expression and chuckled.

“Well, go on then,” Phil said.

Clint put down his tea and picked up the envelope. He started to sober up when he saw that it was from his publisher. Phil looked on with a carefully-guarded expression as Clint picked open the envelope and slid out its contents.

“Well?” he asked after about a minute.

The words swam in front of Clint’s eyes and didn’t make much sense. He handed Phil the pages.

Phil’s eyes skimmed down the top-most sheet and back up to meet Clint’s gaze. “A contract? A proper contract. Wow. Finally! It’s going to print!” he blurted. “Congratulations!” He moved forward to envelop Clint in a hug, but Clint backed away.

“I thought that’s what it said, but I thought I was hallucinating,” said Clint. As the shock hit him, he turned and promptly threw up in the sink.

“Not the reaction I was expecting,” said Phil.

As the university entered the revision period, Clint was able to work from home more often. This was fortunate as he could always get vastly more work done when he wasn’t being stalked by the students who were worried about their exams. Wherever possible, he handled all queries by email, and got his head down to fix the final few issues with his book. By the start of May, Clint was also snowed under with Race admin, which included fielding enquiries from Tony’s film production crew. The crew was due to film segments on each of the teams while their tech was under construction, but figuring out when and how this could take place involved more patience and diplomacy than Tony could ever muster. Clint suspected that Tony’s real skill as far as logistics was concerned was the ability to wait and see if someone else did the tedious grunt work for him.

He began to have an inkling of why Phil rubbed Tony up the wrong way. Phil was, after all, a master at getting people to help him out with the logistical grunt work.

The deadline for final marked assignments was also the day of the student ball. This was not a coincidence. Students – if they thought about such things – generally assumed that the ball was held on this day so that they could celebrate the handing in of their work. The truth was rather more mundane. As soon as classes were over for the year, lecturers quickly dispersed to the four winds to get on with their own research projects. Holding the student ball before the exams simply meant there was more staff on hand to supervise the event and make sure no one burnt down the school.

Clint slung the bag containing his dry-cleaned tux over his shoulder and whistled as he sauntered down the corridor to the admin office. He felt proud. This year he had gained sufficient seniority to mark final theses for the first time, and he was confident enough to believe that the majority of students had produced good work. A small part of him was even looking forward to reading what they’d written. All he needed to do was collect the theses, then he could head to his office and generally kick back and relax for the rest of the afternoon before changing into his outfit. Seriously. There weren’t going to be any surprises tonight. He was just going to drink beer, do a bit of light supervision and forget that the ball heralded two solid weeks of marking.

He knocked and pushed against the admin office door and was surprised to feel some resistance. From the other side of the door, Pepper said, “Ow, stop pushing.”

“Sorry,” said Clint, when Pepper finally opened the door to him. Through the connecting door that linked the admin office with Pepper’s office, Clint could see Natasha idly filing her nails with her feet up on Pepper’s desk, looking for all the world as if she’d been there for hours.

“Busy?” said Clint. “I came by to collect my marking? I can come back later.”

At the desk, Natasha’s expression was unreadable. Finally, the corner of her mouth flicked up into a smile.

Pepper coughed. “Of course,” she said, straightening her jacket and walking across the room.

There was a large table in the far corner of the room covered in boxes that had previously been used for photocopier paper. With a sinking feeling, Clint realised that they now contained all of the department’s marking. As he leant over the table, his foot nudged several more boxes on the floor.

“Let me just see,” said Pepper. “Ah, yes, these ones are yours.” Pepper pointed at two boxes next to each other.

“Two?” said Clint. “How come I get more marking than anyone else?”

“Talent,” said Natasha. She smiled just that little bit broader. “Actually, while you’re here, I’ve fixed your ticketing system again,” she said.

Natasha and Sam had spent some time in the past two weeks monitoring seat bookings for the Egg Race and contacting the purchasers directly if their bookings looked suspicious. A surprising number of phone numbers provided with the bookings did not connect with actual phones, and when they found one of these, they cancelled the order. Between the three of them, they’d decided that even the most healthy paranoia couldn’t account for all of the suspicious activity, which continued unabated.

“What’s our saboteur been up to this time?”

Natasha shrugged, and took her feet off of Pepper’s desk. “Nothing, recently. All of the seats are now taken,” she said.

“Already? There’s weeks to go.”

“We allocated more seats than there actually are at one point,” said Natasha. “That was interesting.”

Clint sighed.

“I’m making sure the students keep our supplies and tools under lock and key in case our saboteur tries something different. It might be a good idea if you did likewise.” Pepper sighed. “This whole thing has got way too serious for my liking.”

“Tell me about it,” said Clint. “This was just supposed to be a bit of fun.”

Pepper looked at Clint with a pitying expression. “This whole competition was Tony’s idea. If you want a warped idea of what constitutes ‘fun’, look no further.”

“I don’t get it though,” said Clint. “I have no idea why anyone would bother to sabotage this.”

“For fun,” said Natasha. “Obviously.”

Clint grumbled as he stacked one box of marking on top of the other, and laid his tux over the top.

“Are you going to be able to manage all of that?” said Pepper.

“I could do with someone else to open the door,” said Clint, from behind one of the boxes.

Clint grunted and grumbled as he manhandled his boxes out into the corridor and carried them to his office. He put them on the floor so he could unlock his door, but then couldn’t get his fingers underneath them to pick them up again, and so ended up pushing them into his room with his foot.

The instant the two boxes were in his office they seemed to develop their own personality, taking up far more space than they should have done. No matter where he put them, he could still see them. They sat there glowering at him, reminding him of all the work he needed to do.

So much for a nice relaxing afternoon before the ball, he thought.

Maybe if he just did a little bit of marking this afternoon, that’d make things easier later.

Kate knocked on his door and popped her head into the office about half an hour after he’d started sorting through the first box. “Heya,” she said.

“Miss Bishop,” said Clint, with a cursory nod in her direction.

“You got a minute?” she asked.

“Not really,” said Clint, looking up and then immediately back down again.

“It’s about my essay,” Kate said.

“Oh, right.”

“Have you had a chance to look at it yet?”

This was one of those questions that became more annoying each time he heard it. He had no words, and gestured at the stack of work on his desk. In addition to the assignments he’d just collected, he had approximately two hundred essays to mark.

“I mean, I got it in on time this time,” Kate added, her tone of voice suggesting that she thought she’d done something to be proud of.

“Well done you,” said Clint, dryly. “Can you remember what it says in the student handbook about the dates you’ll receive your marked essays?”

“Handbook?” Kate looked at Clint as if he was stupid.

“No, I haven’t marked it yet. You’ll have it back in plenty of time,” said Clint.

“Huh? Time for?” said Kate.

“Plenty of time to use my comments to help with your revision,” said Clint.

“Yeah, but...” said Kate. “I just need the mark. Er, not the comments.”

Clint ground his teeth and Kate finally noticed that her words were not having the desired effect. There were any number of things that Clint could say at this point. How, for example, he spent up to an hour on each comment form so that students could focus their studies on the areas that needed the most work. Instead, what he said was, “Go away now.”

“Right,” said Kate, and backed out of the office.

“Now, where was I?” said Clint, and reached for the Ibuprofen.

By the time the ball started, Clint wanted nothing more than to get drunk. He tugged on the front of his bowtie as he strolled into the hall, eyes immediately seeking the punch which, he hoped, had already been doctored by someone.

Darcy waved at him from across the room, and he wandered over to meet her.

“You here as a student, or staff?” said Clint.

“Student, totally,” said Darcy. She shimmied, and the front of her dress slipped down slightly. “I already spend two nights a week getting paid to watch students get drunk. I am not getting paid to be here.”

“Right,” said Clint.

“Which is why I’m going to do this,” she said. She pulled a hip flask out from somewhere and took a deep swig.

“Aren’t you going to spike the punch?” said Clint, trying not to sound disappointed.

“Hell, no. This stuff’s expensive.” She took another swig.

Clint reached out a hand to take the flask from her and Darcy swatted it away. “Shoo. Get your own,” she said.

Clint looked despondently at the punch bowl, then over in the direction of the bar, which was looking suitably awful with its limp decorations of balloons and streamers. Someone he didn’t recognise waved at him from behind the bar.

The penny dropped. “Don’t tell me this is an alcohol-free bar?” said Clint.

“Currently,” said Darcy, with a shrug.

It was a meagre affair, and the few students who had arrived so far looked far from impressed. Clint gave in and served himself a glass of punch, which tasted almost totally unlike any fruit Clint had ever eaten.

“There’s not even any snacks,” Clint complained.

“They come out later. Don’t you remember last year?” said Darcy.

“I’m trying hard to forget what little I remember about last year,” said Clint.

“Hah,” said Darcy. “If only we were all so lucky.”

Clint leaned against the wall and sipped his drink while students continued to arrive. The hall was nearly full by the time the band began to play.

Darcy took another swig from her hip flask and again secreted it somewhere about her person. “You don’t want to know,” she said, watching Clint’s eyes follow the flask. “Come on, dance.” She leaned forward and grabbed Clint’s hands and dragged him out onto the dance floor. Almost immediately, the front of her dress started to slip down again, so she yanked it back up before pulling Clint in close.

“I can’t dance,” said Clint.

“Didn’t stop you last year,” said Darcy, voice rising in volume to make herself heard over the noise of the band. Something itched at the back of Clint’s memory about YouTube clips and Facebook photos, but as soon as Darcy started to dance, Clint’s concentration went elsewhere.

Clint’s feet followed Darcy’s, after a fashion, and if the dancing wasn’t entirely enjoyable, it wasn’t exactly a chore, either.

As Darcy span Clint around, several of Clint’s students came into view then passed out of sight again. “Nice suit!” yelled Mindie from across the room. “Did you get a chance to...” she continued, but her voice became lost amongst the other sounds of the room.

“What was that about?” said Darcy.

“Probably wanted to know if I’d marked her essay yet,” said Clint.

“Really?” said Darcy, and smiled. “Thought I was the only one that got asked that stupid question.”

“How d’you handle it?” said Clint with a grin. On an impulse, he slipped an arm around her waist and dipped her.

Darcy shrieked and grabbed hold of him. “Some warning. Gees,” said Darcy. “How do I cope with it? Tell them the first person that asks that has their essay burnt in front of the whole class.”

“Harsh,” said Clint.

They danced for five long minutes, making a circuit of the room as they did so. Clint watched students dancing, or trying to talk to each other over the noise, but really, it all looked pretty uneventful so far. Finally, trolleys bearing snacks were wheeled into the room, and Darcy turned him so they followed in their wake. By the time the waiting staff had set up their tables a crowd was hovering nearby. The band decided to take a break.

I could do with a proper drink,” said Clint.

“I’m sure I can oblige,” said a familiar voice from behind them. Crowds parted to let Tony through.

Tony.

Oh, god, why, Tony?

“How am I looking?” said Tony, seeing Clint’s expression. “I feel fabulous.”

Clint’s eyes passed fleetingly over the tray of drinks Tony was carrying, and rested on his costume. Tony was not your regular cocktail waitress.

Once upon a time, way back in the mists of time when Clint started as a student at the University, Clint had had a nightmare about Tony Stark. His mistake, he now realised, was telling Tony about it.

“Nice outfit,” said Darcy. “Is that... Sailor Moon?”

“You owe me twenty,” said Tony.

“Get it from Pepper,” said Darcy. “She owes me fifty.”

“That’s my girl,” said Tony.

“You have to keep it on the full hour,” said Darcy.

“Oh, I’m wearing this all night,” said Tony. “For this, I had my chest waxed. Anyway, Steve’s promised to bang me in this later.”

“Oh god,” said Clint.

“He gonna show you his Legendary Silver Crystal?” said Darcy.

“You know it,” said Tony. “Anyway, drinks,” he added. “Drink this shit so I can dance.”

Clint took two glasses from the tray, glanced over at Darcy, and then drank them both.


	23. The Camera Never Lies

Clint finished marking his current essay, flipped the final page over, and swung his legs up onto his desk. When he turned his head, he could look out of the window at all the wonders of a warm spring evening that he wouldn’t get the chance to enjoy.

The pain experienced by the entire department while marking was the perfect mirror to the students’ hell of exam revision. Phil was also in hell, preparing for the exams at his school, while Darcy experienced her own special kind of hell, sitting – and passing – the Viva for her PhD. Coupled with the admin related to next year’s student intake and the stress and additional admin of the impending Race, it made for a very tense atmosphere all round. No one felt as if they could spare the time to visit their allotted schools to see how their Race projects were going, and yet by the end of May it was essentially compulsory, because with two weeks left until the race, Tony Stark’s film crew was due to visit each of the schools.

As race organiser, Clint was supposed to be unbiased and could not have privileged information about the other teams’ designs which he could use to benefit his own team. He congratulated himself that so far, he’d managed to ignore all the rumours. The only thing he really knew was the names of the team members. He was pleased but not at all surprised to see that Mindie Tanner was on the university team. With the regulations written out in full on the website, it was also left to each team’s discretion that they’d stick to the rules. If they didn’t – well, a team could be disqualified on camera and in front of a large audience before the race started. He hoped that would be incentive enough.

He thought his team at Sheldon High School was doing pretty well, actually.

Clint packed up the few things he’d need for the rest of the evening and left the stacks of marking on his desk. He was due over at Sheldon High for the test of their design and TV interview.

Clint knew that tonight was also the night his team would discover that there was a fundamental flaw in their design. He’d done really well in hiding that fact from them, and it’d been hard, but after all, the design was meant to be all their own work.

By the time Clint pulled up in the car park at Sheldon High, George, one of Sheldon High’s team members, was escorting a man wearing headphones and carrying a large fuzzy microphone on a pole across the sports field. Behind him trailed Charlie, the student teacher, the other members of the team and the rest of the film crew.

Clint took a moment to appreciate the sight, and took a couple of photos with his phone.

He slung his bag across his shoulder and walked over to join them.

Down at one end of the field, George, Chloe and Jamie were busy setting up their aqueduct, while Sean prepared to time them with his stopwatch, and Jenny and Tom, the two remaining members of the team, cut lengths of Duck tape to hold their equipment together.

“It’ll look better on the day,” Tom said to the sound man, nodding in the direction of the lengths of gutter.

“Tom wants to pimp it,” said Chloe.

“Tom wants to set fire to it and start again,” said Jenny.

“We don’t actually have a proper water tank yet,” said George, moving two buckets of water so that they were within easy reach. “The school’s going to be providing those on the day. So we’re making do with these.”

“Yeah, we’ve only got an hour from when we arrive to figure out how to hook the tank up to this,” Jenny gestured at their design.

“What we’re trying to do tonight is figure out how much water we need to get six eggs from the top of the aqueduct to the bucket at the bottom, and whether we can do that in three minutes,” said George.

“Are you worried?” said the interviewer.

Clint squinted at the man and idly considered what a douche of a question that was. Their photographer chose that moment to take a photograph of him.

“Nah, not really,” said George. “If we can’t do it tonight, we’ll think of something.”

“I know there’s prizes,” said Sean, “but we’re still trying to look on this as a bit of fun.”

“Yeah, that’s right, fun,” said Tom, in the same way someone might say ‘thermonuclear device’.

Something from earlier in the conversation tickled at the back of Clint’s mind, and as the interview carried on beside him, he mentally back-tracked until he found it.

Oh yes, tanks.

He’d forgotten about those.

Early on in the competition, he’d made a mental note to get hold of seven or eight tanks that the teams could use, but a quick Google search hadn’t turned up any cheap suppliers, or indeed any suppliers of any kind that were within an hour’s drive of the university. And so he’d kind of... forgotten about it.

Well, shit. That was something else he’d have to sort out in the next day or so.

It’d be fine. Except, shit.

The sound of ripping Duck tape brought Clint back to the present, and he watched as Jamie put the finishing touches to their simple design, and stood back.

“It’s all looking pretty sturdy,” he said.

“Stop trying to break it,” said Chloe.

“Shit, but sturdy,” said Tom.

“You can edit the swearing out, right?” Chloe asked the interviewer, who merely shrugged.

Their twenty metres of gutter pipe snaked down from a wooden crate that was at about shoulder height, down to a bucket on the ground. Between the two ends were dozens of wooden support struts to hold up the gutter: over a metre tall at the crate end and short at the bucket end. It was obvious where most of the team’s construction effort had gone.

With their equipment all set up, the photographer took a photo of their set-up and the team, then nodded at them and walked away.

“Isn’t he going to stick around?” said Sean.

No one seemed to know the answer to that question.

“Okay, we’re ready to go,” said George, reaching for the first bucket of water and placing it on top of the crate. “Who’s got the eggs?”

The camera man stepped back slightly and adjusted his lens.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” said Tom, reaching into their box of supplies and bringing out a carton of eggs. “We eat these later, right?” he said. “I mean, if we don’t break them?”

“They’re all yours,” said Sean, “If you want to take them home.”

Tom looked at the box in his hands and pulled a face, suddenly realising that this would involve actual effort. “Hmm, okay,” he said. “Well, here goes the first egg. George, start pouring the water.”

George started to pour the first bucket of water, and water cascaded down the gutter, with a fair amount also sloshing out onto the ground. Some of the joints in the pipes started to sag slightly, but held firm.

“Quick! Put the egg in, quick!” said Chloe.

“I was waiting for the gutter to fill up,” said Tom.

“It’s not going to fill up, genius. It’s draining into the bucket,” said Sean.

“Okay, okay. I’m doing it,” said Tom. He placed the first egg in the pipe, where it promptly wobbled and sank to the bottom of the water. The flow from the bucket ebbed around it and bobbed down the pipe very, very slowly.

“It’s not moving,” said Chloe, unnecessarily.

“It’s sunk,” said Tom.

“Poke it with your finger,” said Jamie.

“That’s not allowed,” said Clint.

“Add more water,” said Jenny.

George obliged and sloshed more water into the gutter, which made the egg move faster, but also overflowed the sides of the plastic and covered the grass at their feet.

“Come on, come on,” said George. “How many seconds is that?”

“Too many,” said Sean. “About a minute.”

“We’re only half-way,” said Tom. “We’re never going to get six down to the end at this rate.”

“The egg isn’t floating,” said Jamie.

“That one doesn’t,” said Jenny. “Try another.”

There it was, thought Clint. The technical setback he’d been waiting for his team to have. He watched as the crew filmed them re-start their experiment with a fresh egg. Their second and third eggs fared no better, and by the time their third egg had bobbed uselessly down the first half of their gutter, they were out of water and their time limit had elapsed.

“So, what’re you going to do?” said the interviewer. The team members looked at each other.

Clint smiled. This was a problem all of the teams would face sooner or later, and how they tackled it would probably be at least as entertaining as watching them pour two buckets of water into the top end of their aqueduct and not expecting it to overflow the single bucket they’d put at the lower end.

“We’ll think of something,” said George.

“Go home and raid my parents’ drinks cabinet,” said Tom.

With that, the film crew decided that they’d got enough footage for the day, and started to pack up. Charlie, who’d remained in the background for the entire episode, walked off without saying a word.

“Just two teams left to film, right?” Clint said to the camera man.

“Yeah,” he said. “Community College tomorrow, the university on Friday.”

“I don’t suppose I can ask you what you think so far?” said Clint, hedging.

“Well,” he said. “It’s fun. Plus it’s a lot easier than trying to film Stark.”

“Yeah, fair enough,” said Clint, and laughed as he waved the crew goodbye. His team stood around and despondently started to pack up their equipment.

“Can we ask you questions?” said Chloe.

“Of course you can,” said Clint.

“Is it alright if we release all the eggs at the same time? I mean, that’d save time.”

“What do the rules say?” said Clint.

“Grr, I hate it when you do that,” said Jamie. “Can’t you just tell us?”

“Why d’you think?” Clint grinned. He relented. “You can release the eggs one after the other, without a pause. You can’t put them all in at the same time.” 

“Right.”

“But they have to be in the water,” said Jamie. “I mean, they can’t be in a boat or anything.”

“You tell me,” said Clint, unhelpfully.

“So we have to figure out how to make eggs float, and how to make them go faster,” said Jenny.

“That’s about the size of it,” said Clint. “And don’t forget you can email me at work if you’ve got more questions. Questions that I’m actually allowed to answer. You don’t have to wait until next week.”

“Looks like we’ve got loads more work to do,” said Tom, and kicked out at one of the support struts.

“Hey!” yelled most of the others.

“You’re supposed to be helping us take this to bits,” said Chloe.

“I was,” said Tom. He grumbled to himself, but started to help.

Clint left them to it. They’d figure it out.

It was still early and Clint felt like he deserved a treat, so he texted Phil and asked if he’d like to meet him at Thor’s bar. It seemed like weeks since they’d last been there, which meant it probably was.

Tony was at the bar, annoying Darcy and Thor with practiced ease. Eye-level with Darcy’s cleavage, he appeared completely unaware of how pissed this made Thor. Clint decided to defuse the situation, and sat down next to him.

“Biceps,” said Darcy, nodding in his direction. “Long time no see.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” said Clint. “It’s been forever.” He felt his shoulders sag as he started to relax. Darcy took one look at him and poured him a beer. “Thanks,” Clint said as Darcy placed the glass in front of him.

As Tony’s hand snaked out to reach for Clint’s glass, Darcy rapped his knuckles.

“Ow! What was that for?” said Tony.

“I need reasons?” said Darcy. “Boney’s cut off,” she told Clint.

Clint choked on his first sip of beer. It had been so long since he’d heard Darcy’s nickname for Tony that he’d forgotten it.

“It’s short for Bonaparte,” said Tony, feigning decorum.

“No. It is not,” said Thor. He turned his back on Tony and started to slice some lemons.

“Been here long?” said Clint, looking at his watch. It was barely eight o’clock and Tony looked wasted.

“Not that long,” said Tony, and Darcy snorted. “What?” he said. “I was up all night marking, okay? I’m not drunk, I’m just tired. It happens. Don’t make a big deal of it.”

“Did Steve switch your coffee for decaf?” asked Clint, taking a longer sip of beer.

Tony squinted at him and Clint could practically see the cogs in Tony’s brain whirring. Tony reached for his own glass, but it was just as empty as the last time he’d tried it. “He may have done,” Tony admitted.

“What did you do this time?” said Clint.

“Why does it always have to be my fault?” said Tony.

“Yes, why, I wonder?” said Darcy. “We’re still trying to get to the bottom of what he did to provoke Steve,” she told Clint.

“I’m not,” said Thor, glancing over his shoulder and then returning to his work. “I no longer care.”

“Whatever it was, apologise,” said Clint.

Tony made a chucking noise at the back of his throat. “I didn’t do anything,” he said. “I’ve been too busy marking. Maarrrrking.” Tony stretched out the last word for emphasis.

“Just an idea,” said Darcy, “but how many nights have you been ‘marking’?”

Tony squinted at Darcy. “This is a conspiracy,” he said. “A few.”

“Uh-huh,” said Darcy. She paused and inspected her fingernails. “Well, perhaps you should think about just how many nights you’ve been ignoring that lovely boy and do something about it.”

“I’ve not...” said Tony. “I’m not ignoring him. We... in the stationery cupboard this morning. Not ignoring. See?”

“Uh-huh,” said Darcy, those two syllables laden with more meaning than any sentence would have been.

“Not making it any better,” said Clint. A thought occurred to him. “You didn’t miss the filming up at Twin Pines, did you?” Phil had been tight-lipped about the affair, but Clint had assumed that this was because he didn’t want to give anything away about their team’s design.

“No, there for that,” said Tony. “And we rocked. Even made your plank of a boyfriend look good.”

“He’ll be here later,” said Clint. “You can tell him that yourself.”

Tony choked. “No fear.”

“I’d like to see the photos. Of Phil and the team. And you. After this is all over, of course,” said Clint. Phil’s nieces, he was sure, would love some photos of their uncle with the so-called great Tony Stark.

“Photos?” said Tony. “I’m not with you.”

“The ones the photographer took of the team,” said Clint, wondering why Tony was so slow on the uptake.

“Photographer? What photographer?”

“Tony,” said Clint, exasperated. “The one with your film crew.”

“There isn’t one,” said Tony, flatly. “Why would we need a photographer? We’ve got a camera man, sound guy, the guy who handles the interviews, and some guy who does random stuff I’m not interested in. We were only going to get someone in for shots on the day. Save money.”

Thor turned and leaned in to the bar, and Darcy’s expression became serious. “Well, we had a photographer,” said Clint.

“What did he look like?” said Tony.

“I don’t know,” Clint shrugged. “Short. Dark hair. Early twenties. Had quite a nice camera – professional enough that I didn’t get suspicious.”

“Observant,” said Tony, suddenly seeming very sober.

“Hang on, I took a photo,” said Clint, digging his cell phone out of his pocket. He quickly flipped to the photos he’d taken earlier that evening and zoomed in on the photographer.

“Never seen him before in my life,” said Tony. “Call Pepper.”

The impromptu staff meeting took place in Thor’s bar half an hour later. Phil arrived as they were rearranging tables so that they could sit together.

“We had this guy at Kalamette,” said Fury, sitting down. “Ass. Seemed to enjoy it when the girls got soaked. Had to give him a piece of my mind.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” said Clint.

Fury nodded in Tony’s direction. “Figured he was Tony Stark’s photographer.”

“Hey!” snapped Tony. “I resent that remark.”

“Same thing,” said Bruce. “This guy...” Bruce rolled his lips together as he tried to control his temper. “Made some unpleasant remarks to a couple of the girls at St Hilda’s. I took him to one side and had a few words. Got him to apologise, and I thought he was sincere. I didn’t see him take any actual photos of the girls, though.”

“What about you, Nat?” asked Clint.

Natasha shrugged, arms crossed.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Clint.

“It means St Hugh’s’ve been jerking me around,” said Natasha. “The school’s cancelled the last two sessions, so I told the film crew we weren’t ready.”

“The crew seemed to think they only had two schools left to film,” said Clint.

“Maybe,” said Natasha.

“And that means?” said Clint.

“That I wouldn’t be surprised if St Hugh’s pulls out of the competition. They’ve not done any work. Either that or they’ll just turn up on the day with something they’ve cobbled together at the last minute.”

“They’re perfectly within their rights to do that,” said Pepper, attempting to calm the waters.

“I don’t suppose you’d be prepared to ask Lauffeson whether a photographer was part of his camera crew this week?” Clint asked Pepper. He heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Darcy approaching their table. She pulled up a chair and sat down.

“I’m joining this meeting,” she said.

“No,” said Pepper, continuing. “I’m not going to ask him. What we actually think is going on here – though no one has actually said it – is that we have a spy. We think someone from Lauffeson’s team is taking pictures of our competition entries.”

“Maybe they’re just trying to cause trouble,” said Bruce. “Make our teams look bad somehow.”

“More likely someone is trying to save themselves some effort,” said Fury. “Trying to find the best entry and copy it.”

“Or,” said Natasha, “set one or more of the other teams up so it looks like they’ve been cheating. Eliminate the competition.”

“You folks know some not nice people,” said Darcy. “Seriously, not nice. When I joined this school, I thought you all were nice.”

Pepper raised an eyebrow, then reached over and patted her hand. “There, there,” she said.

“So obviously the film crew’ve not visited my school yet,” said Steve. “And they’re due tomorrow. What do you want us to do?” Steve looked at Clint then over to Tony and Pepper.

Pepper inhaled deeply. “Well, I don’t want that photographer to see your competition entry,” she said.

“And we don’t want him to piss off any of your team, either,” said Tony.

Steve smiled a small, tight smile. “I’ll have words with my students. As far as our competition entry goes, what do you suggest?”

“I can’t think of anything that won’t involve a ton of work,” said Clint.

“Surely it wouldn’t be that bad if they saw what we’ve got planned?” said Steve.

Tony scowled.

“Can you rig up something else by tomorrow?” said Fury. “Fool them into thinking that’s your entry?”

“But the film crew will be recording it,” said Steve.

“So tell them it’s a prank later. It’ll make you guys look good. Creative. Like you think outside the box and shit,” said Fury.

“Mmm,” said Steve. “Well, there might be something.”

“Well?” said Pepper.

“It’s the end of year exhibitions,” said Steve. “For the art, pottery and sculpture students. We might be able to... I don’t know... make something out of bits of sculpture that students rejected. That no one wants.”

“Okay, that’s a possibility,” said Tony.

Steve mulled it over. “Actually, I could set this up as a separate art project. For actual credit. It’d take some doing, but yeah. I think it could actually work. Leave it with me.” Steve sounded determined, which made everyone else feel more optimistic.

“What about you? You’re due to be filmed in a couple of days.” Steve asked Pepper.

“Well, I’ve got two days. Send me those photos, Clint, and I’ll find someone to go through the student database and see if we’ve got a match. I can access the names of everyone who’s registered as a team member and cross-check. Only problem is, I’m snowed under with the exams,” said Pepper.

“I’ll do it,” said Darcy.

“Seriously?” said Pepper.

“Seriously,” said Darcy. “You don’t have to pay me or anything. Kind of got time on my hands right now. Applying for jobs and stuff.”

“You’re a life-saver,” said Pepper. “And you’ll get paid somehow. I’ll see to it.”

Darcy grinned.

“In the meantime – if we’ve still not sorted this out by the time the camera crew turns up to film the university team – well, I’m sure we can think of a suitable punishment for our ‘photographer’.” Pepper looked over at Natasha, whose expression spoke volumes. Clint felt a cold chill run down his spine.

“Apart from that, it’s business as usual,” Pepper added. “And I need to get back to work.” With that, Pepper stood up and left the bar. She was followed shortly afterwards by the other university staff. Clint watched Steve and Tony in the car park, whatever minor feud there had been between them obviously forgotten as Steve drove Tony home in his car. Darcy returned to the bar, leaving Clint alone with Phil.

“Hey,” said Phil warmly, leaning over to give Clint a welcome kiss. “Sounds like you’ve had a busy day.”

“Yeah. How’s yours been?”

“Not bad.” Phil shrugged. “The exams are nearly over and I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

“Got time for a drink, then?” Clint asked.

“Yes, one,” said Phil. “I can drive us back.”

Phil slung his arm over Clint’s shoulder as they walked to the bar. Clint stood idly looking at the drinks on offer, trying to decide if he wanted to try something new. He suddenly remembered something else he needed to do and turned to Phil. “Now if only I could find someone willing to sell me half a dozen or so water tanks for this competition. What with everything else I kind of forgot about them.”

“Tanks, you say?” said Thor. “I may be able to help you with that.”


	24. Bad Eggs

Clint was awakened by the beep of an incoming text message. ‘It’s all set,’ it read. ‘Come along before six tonight and watch if you like – have the perfect place for you to hide. Steve.’ Clearly Steve had had no sleep at all.

“Alright?” Phil mumbled against him, tucked in snugly against Clint’s side.

“Yeah, fine.” Clint rubbed his face and checked the time. It wasn’t even seven AM. He didn’t need to wake up for another half an hour. He knew he wasn’t going to get back to sleep, wondering what Steve had planned. Phil stroked a hand down his chest, and Clint thought of a much better way to be distracted.

Two hours later, a significantly more relaxed Clint Barton pulled into the car park of Thor’s brewery. The Thor Odinson he met in his office was quite a different sort of man from the Thor he was used to seeing in Thor’s bar.

“Barton,” said Thor, welcoming Clint in.

“Hey,” said Clint. “Well, you look different.”

“The suit, yes? I am meeting suppliers today.” Thor straightened his tie and raised an eyebrow.

“Well, I wouldn’t mess with you looking like that.”

Thor smiled. “Naturally. May I offer you a beverage?”

“No thanks,” said Clint. “Actually, I need to head over to the school in a few minutes. Exam marking.” Clint shrugged.

“I see,” said Thor. “Well, I would not want to delay your treat.” He stood and moved out from behind his desk. “Let us not waste any time, then. Let me show you what I have.”

“Okay.”

Thor moved ahead of Clint and escorted him down several corridors. “We acquire many sizes of tank from our suppliers. Usually, they are returned when empty, but I believe we can stand to lose a few for this venture.”

“I appreciate it, Thor,” said Clint.

“Think nothing of it,” said Thor. “’Tis the least I could do for my best customers. And it may help recompense for any wrongdoings of my brother.”

“Your brother?”

Thor pushed open a pair of large swing doors and directed Clint into an open-fronted storage warehouse full of boxes, barrels and wooden pallets. “I often overhear the complaints of your department and how they relate to Lauffeson of the Business School.”

“Lauffeson is your brother?” said Clint.

“He is adopted,” said Thor.

“Sorry if I said anything out of turn, Thor. I didn’t realise.”

Thor didn’t make eye contact. “No need. It is no secret, but we parted on bad terms. He has a brilliant mind, but he is troubled.”

Clint wisely kept silent. Now was not the time to get into a discussion on the relative failings of brothers. Thor didn’t seem to share Clint’s reticence.

“This is a family business, as you are no doubt aware. Sadly, we disagree on the way to run it.”

Okay, so now there was that. That the head of the Business School and the head of the family business disagreed on the subject of how to run a business was a bottomless well of arguments that Clint wasn’t going to go anywhere near.

Thor sensed Clint’s unease. “So, you need eight barrels, yes?” he said, changing the subject.

“We’ve got seven teams, but it’d be nice to have a spare. I’m going to need them all the same size, though.”

“No problem,” said Thor. He showed Clint what he had to offer, and Clint walked away twenty minutes later pleased that he’d found something that would be perfect for the task. He was even more pleased when Thor agreed to deliver them to Tony’s house so that they could be spray-painted in school colours. It wasn’t often that Clint felt this accomplished before he’d arrived at work.

There were plenty of tense, haunted faces on campus, and it took Clint a few moments to remember that it was because today and tomorrow were the last two days of exams for students majoring in Languages.

“Boy, you really were lost in thought, weren’t you?” said Darcy, running up behind him and grabbing him by the elbow. “Heading my way?”

“Dropping some essays off and picking up some exam scripts,” said Clint.

“Then you’re heading my way,” said Darcy.

Together, they walked towards the History building.

“Joining Pepper’s super secret spy team?” said Clint.

“Joining the two most kick-ass women I know in some university-sanctioned snooping, so yeah.” Darcy paused. “I bought pie.”

“I’m not sure the world is ready for the three of you working together,” said Clint.

Darcy grinned. “By the way,” she said conversationally, “have you spoken to Bruce lately?”

“Not really, why?”

“I just wondered if he was still dating that moody-looking guy.”

“No idea.” Clint shrugged. “I didn’t know it was common knowledge. Why?”

“It’s not common knowledge,” said Darcy. “But I have my sources. I was just trying to figure out who to invite to my getting-my-PhD celebratory drinks.”

“You still haven’t celebrated that?”

“No. Well, apart from getting drunk on absinthe with Sam and Tony, which doesn’t count. ‘Cause that could happen any day of the week. So.”

“Fair point,” said Clint. “I assume I’m invited?”

“Sure,” said Darcy. “You and Suit Studly. Friday after work, if you can make it.”

Clint goggled at Phil’s new nickname and Darcy poked him in the chest.

“Have you any idea how difficult it is trying to keep track of all the relationships in the department? All the eligible members of staff are sleeping with hot students or other members of staff.”

“So which member of staff are you sleeping with?” said Clint.

“Aw, you’re so sweet,” said Darcy, and patted his shoulder. “But you remember what the end of the PhD is like. Fifteen straight hours of thesis edits and you feel as sexy as a cactus in the underpants.”

“So no one,” said Clint.

“No one who’s lived to tell the tale,” said Darcy, with a shrug. “I bite their heads off after mating.”

Their conversation had taken them as far as Pepper’s office, and so Darcy knocked and they both entered.

“Ah, Darcy, Clint,” said Pepper. “Give me a minute, Darcy?”

“Sure,” said Darcy.

“Come on through to the admin office, Clint?” said Pepper.

“Sure,” said Clint, following her. Head down and rifling through his bag for his latest batch of marked assignments, Clint didn’t see what awaited him.

“No fucking way,” said Clint when he finally raised his head. Pepper raised an eyebrow, and took the batch of essays that he offered her.

“Thanks,” said Pepper.

“These can’t all be mine,” said Clint. He walked over to the table to have a look. As with the previous batch of marking, the table was laden down with stacks of paperwork, one pile for each lecturer. A pile on the left-hand side was approximately two foot high, and had Clint’s name on a post-it note on top.

Darcy, who had been watching their interaction with amusement, laughed.

“What?” said Clint.

“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just that I never imagined exam marking being quite like this.”

“Have you seen these?” said Clint, incredulous at the amount of work he’d have to mark. “I’m gonna give myself a hernia just getting them to the car.”

“Most students think that the lecturers sit round a table discussing the relative merits of each essay. Maybe with a glass of sherry,” said Darcy.

“No they don’t,” said Clint.

Darcy shrugged.

“Anyway, I don’t drink sherry,” said Clint.

Pepper looked at Clint’s stack and frowned, then walked over to take a closer look. “Oh, that explains it,” she said, and split the stack in two, revealing a second post-it note bearing the Name ‘Tony Stark’. Tony had apparently added all of his work to the bottom of Clint’s pile. “Tony gifted you his marking,” she said. “These ones are still yours, though.”

“Fine,” said Clint, and began to stuff them in his bag.

Darcy clucked at him.

“I’m being careful,” said Clint. “See?” He took pains to make sure that he put the next few essays into his bag carefully. “Satisfied?” he said.

“Nah, the mystique has gone,” said Darcy. “Where do you want me to work, Pep?”

Pepper went over to her computer and typed in her password. “You can sit here,” she said. “I’ve got a meeting to get to in a minute.”

“Right, so I’ll just go then?” said Clint.

“Yeah, bye,” said Darcy.

“Just a minute, Clint,” said Pepper.

Clint looked up from his attempt to zip his bag shut. “What is it?” he asked.

“Your final batch should be ready for collection next Tuesday. But if you think you’ve got a lot to mark this year, you should see what it’s going to be like next year,” said Pepper with a smile.

“Er... okay?” said Clint, not sure where Pepper was going with this. “Is that a good thing?”

“It is,” said Pepper. “Intake’s looking good. Ten percent up on last year already, in fact.”

“Great,” said Clint. “They’ll have to go a long way to prove that the department’s not making money now.”

“Don’t jinx it,” said Pepper, but she smiled again and touched Clint’s arm conspiratorially. “But – what I actually wanted to say was that the effort you’ve been putting in has been noticed. And it’ll be reflected in your contract.” Her expression suggested that this was good news.

“Okay.”

“And your pay grade. So let’s make an appointment to talk in the next week or so.”

“Oh, okay then. Right! Right!” said Clint, and beamed back at her. One quick glance over at Darcy suggested that he’d better leave before she started to ask any difficult questions.

Clint’s excitement at his potential promotion soon dwindled. Six hours of marking and he felt like murdering someone. Well, that was a little harsh. He felt like shaking the people who obviously hadn’t done any work and hadn’t paid attention to any of the exam prep he’d spent days preparing. Anyway, the upshot was that he felt tense. The only positive thing that had happened that afternoon was that he’d had an email from his team announcing that they’d figured out how to make their eggs float, so that was good.

As Clint drove towards Community College, the remaining work locked away in the trunk of his car seemed to be growling at him. Ah, not his work. His stomach.

He turned off and parked up outside Tanner’s stores, and ducked inside to get himself some snacks to keep him going until he got home.

He was preoccupied and deciding which of several candy bars to buy when Mindie and one of her younger sisters appeared in the aisle beside him.

“Hey, Dr B.,” said Mindie, looking over her shoulder to check that her mother wasn’t watching.

“Mindie.”

“Here by yourself tonight?”

“Yeah, just needed a snack,” said Clint.

“That guy’s your boyfriend, right?” said Mindie. “The guy you come in here with?”

Clint, still preoccupied with a decision between chocolate or peanut, didn’t feel the prickles of caution on the back of his neck. He nodded. “Yup.”

“See!” said Mindie to her sister. “I told you he couldn’t be.”

“But he is our principal, he is!” her sister snapped back.

“What?” said Clint, turning to face them.

“She says that guy you come in here with is the principal at her school. And I say he can’t be, ‘cos he’s your boyfriend,” Mindie explained.

“Uh,” said Clint.

“His boyfriend is my principal, stupid,” said Mindie’s sister. At nine years old, she knew that principals could also be boyfriends.

“Uh,” said Clint again.

“He’s not though, is he?” said Mindie.

“Uh,” said Clint, still holding a candy bar in either hand.

“Will you two leave that man alone?” said a shrill voice from the back of the store.

Thank the lord, thought Clint, and practically jogged to the tills to buy his candy. Behind him, he could hear Mindie sigh melodramatically, shortly followed by the sounds of the two sisters having a fight.

So now there was something else Clint needed to talk to Phil about when he got home.

“She’s really keyed up about this race,” said Mindie’s mother conversationally as he paid for his items.

“That’s great. You coming to watch?”

“Can’t get away.” Mindie’s mother shrugged. “But we’ll catch it on TV, and I’m told we have to buy the DVD on pain of death.”

Clint smiled. “Sounds harsh.”

“Yeah, that Stark does a hard sell.”

“You what?”

“You haven’t seen the adverts?” said Mindie’s mother.

“No,” said Clint, firmly.

So now there was something Clint needed to talk to Tony about. This really was all getting a bit much.

Clint drove to the Community College, his mood fluctuating between pleasure at the thought of a promotion and despondency at the thought of another week of marking. Steve saw him arrive and rushed out to meet him. He gestured that Clint should roll his window down.

“Can you park round the side?” Steve said.

“Sure.”

“Just over there,” Steve gestured. “Those spaces are usually reserved for the cleaning staff, but they won’t mind.”

“Okay. Boy, you really are taking this covert thing seriously aren’t you?” said Clint.

Steve shrugged. “Yeah. Look, I’ll wait here. We’d better hurry up, though. The others’ll be here in ten minutes.”

“Right,” said Clint, rolling up his window again and taxiing his car around the side of the building. Steve was bouncing impatiently on the balls of his feet by the time Clint returned. He took off at a lope as he saw Clint appear, and Clint jogged after him as Steve vanished inside the building. Clint followed Steve up a narrow staircase, their footsteps clanging loudly on the metal structure. Eventually, they reached a narrow walkway above the main hall: a space obviously designed with the maintenance of lighting rigs and backdrops of school plays in mind.

“You going to be okay here?” said Steve.

“Sure,” said Clint, surveying the scene. Actually, it was pretty comfortable. He could sit here with his legs dangling and eat a candy bar or two while watching the drama unfold beneath him.

Steve nodded and darted back down the stairs, and Clint listened as the metallic echo grew quieter until a door slammed and Steve appeared in the hall below him. One quick glance up at Clint in the rafters and then Steve began busying himself with setting out chairs and wheeling a large object covered in a white sheet into the room.

A few minutes later, several young men and women entered the room, and Clint gathered that this was the College team. They grouped around Steve as he said a few words and then separated and sat down. From this distance, Clint couldn’t hear what people were saying, but he could see everything perfectly. The trap was apparently set. Stark’s camera crew arrived moments later, followed by a bored-looking young man with a large camera slung around his neck. The cameraman sat at the back of the room while Steve talked to the film crew, then idly took a few photos of Steve’s team.

Shortly afterwards, the team and crew were ready for the grand unveiling. Clint stifled a gasp as the cover was removed from the team’s prank contraption.

Apparently, one of Steve’s students had taken their inspiration from the game ‘Mousetrap’. All Steve had needed to do was tweak the design so that it was powered by water. Either that, or Steve had mentioned the idea to Tony, and Tony had built the whole thing overnight. It was glorious. It also had the benefit of actually being compliant with the terms and conditions of the competition.

One of the team climbed a step ladder with a bucket of water, and carefully poured water down a drainpipe. As the water flowed out of the other end of the pipe, it filled a large can attached to one end of a teeter-totter. As soon as the can was full, the team member stopped pouring. The weight of the full can caused the other end of the teeter-totter to rise. As it did so, it nudged an old boot fastened to the end of a pole, which kicked an egg down a series of angled steps – a total of twenty metres, Clint guessed – into a bucket at the far end. As the egg reached the bucket, another team member emptied the tin can so that it could be re-used. Then the team-member at the top of the ladder started to pour water again, and they repeated the procedure with another egg while the rest of the team wolf-whistled and yelled words of encouragement. The film crew loved it. The photographer was all over it.

The contraption was perfect in many respects. Teams weren’t allowed to tamper with their eggs once they’d started on their twenty-metre journey, but there was nothing in the rules that said students couldn’t tamper with the water – i.e. by moving their containers. The only real issue with the design as far as Clint could see was that it’d taken about a minute to get the first egg from one end of the course to the other. It was highly unlikely that they’d be able to get all of their eggs safely to the end in three minutes.

Clint snapped a couple of pictures with his phone and sat back and enjoyed the show, then waited patiently as the film crew packed up, the photographer left, and Steve came back up the stairs to meet him.

“What d’ya think?” Steve asked, grinning wildly.

“Magnificent,” said Clint.

“Yeah, we enjoyed that. Anyway – would you mind leaving?” Steve shrugged apologetically. “We need to do the real rehearsal.”

“Oh, okay, sure,” said Clint. He grabbed a railing and pulled himself to his feet, then followed Steve out of the building.

“Aren’t you tempted to enter this one anyway?” said Clint once he was back in his car with the window wound down.

“No,” said Steve, waving Clint off, which led Clint to believe that whatever Community College’s real competition entry was, Steve thought that they were on to a winner.

Later that night as Phil and Clint sat in opposite corners of the same room, working, Clint looked up to find Phil staring at him.

“What are we doing?” said Phil.

Clint, his head full of his current exam script, answered automatically. “Huguenot weavers?”

Phil raised his eyebrows, then put his work down with an air of finality. “I miss you,” he said.

“I’m right here,” said Clint.

“No, you’re not,” said Phil. “And neither am I.”

“Okay. So what do we do about that?” said Clint.

Phil stood and walked over to him; put out a hand for Clint to take hold of. Clint grasped it, stood, and followed him out of the room and to their bed.


	25. Sex, Lies and Videotape

Being awakened by other university staff was beginning to become a bit of a habit. Clint grabbed his phone and pulled it to his face in the early-morning light as the sounds of Phil clattering about in the kitchen filtered up to him from the room below. A quick click on a link sent by Pepper took him through to where a video of the Community College prank competition entry had been leaked on Twitter. Carefully shot, the video could have been made by any of the members of the College team, but of course wasn’t.

Clint groaned as he scrolled through the comments: increasingly more bizarre and random until Sam’s voice of reason entered the conversation. Several people seemed to be decrying the competition as fixed, a farce, or a sad reflection on the quality of college education. The vast majority of comments however, seemed to consist of positive remarks and excessive punctuation.

Clint called Pepper. “What’d’ya want to do about this?” he grumbled down the phone at her.

Pepper’s cheery voice suggested she’d been up for hours and was fully rested. “Nothing,” she said. “Let it play out. I wouldn’t be surprised if Steve’s students get work out of this. I’ll see you in the bar later.”

“Bar?” said Clint, the only part of the conversation that had really stuck in his mind.

“Darcy’s drinks? To celebrate her PhD? Oh, and I think Tony wants to celebrate the end of the filming of the individual team segments.”

“Tony always wants to celebrate something,” said Clint. He terminated the call and went back to sleep with the phone still wedged against his ear.

A couple of hours later he tumbled into the kitchen in his boxer shorts to make himself some coffee, idly scratching himself and wondering how many essays he could mark before lunch. An elderly couple sat at the kitchen table; Phil hovered nearby with the best coffee cups and a jug of cream.

Phil’s parents.

So there was that.

“Uh,” Clint said, and edged backwards out of the kitchen.

The first impression Phil’s parents really had of Clint was Clint catching his underwear on the door handle, then jumping in fright as the cold metal touched the small of his back. All in all, it could have been worse. Though probably not by much.

“He seems nice,” said Phil’s mom charitably as Clint retreated back up the stairs as quickly as his embarrassment would allow.

Of course, thought Clint as he hurriedly rummaged through a pile of clean shirts. They were here for the whole week of the competition and would be joined by Phil’s sister and the kids in a couple of days. He hadn’t forgotten, obviously.

Five minutes later, Clint had dressed and almost regained his composure. When he finally emerged back in the kitchen, neither of Phil’s parents mentioned it. Because they were Phil’s parents, and they were good like that.

“Dr Coulson,” said Clint, sticking out a hand for Phil’s dad to shake.

“Clint,” said Phil’s father.

“Mrs Coulson.” Clint shook Phil’s mother’s hand.

“Clint,” said Phil’s mother. “Call me Heather. And he’s Joe. Not ‘Dr’ anything.”

“Not outside work, anyway,” said Joe, smiling. 

“And he’s retired,” said Heather. “Anyway, we won’t keep you,” she added. “We just dropped by to let Philip know we’d arrived safely; discuss our plans for the week.”

“We’re in the Holiday Inn,” said Joe. “We just thought a chat with Philly here would be easier...”

“Nicer,” said Phil’s mom.

“Than chatting over the phone,” said Joe.

Phil rolled his eyes, carefully, so his mom didn’t see him.

“Are you not at work today, Clint?” said Heather.

“Clint’s working from home today, mom,” said Phil. “I told you.”

She looked Clint directly in the eye. “Well, don’t mind us. I mean, if you need to be in your underwear to get any work done.”

“Mother,” said Phil.

“I remember your lucky underpants, dear,” said Heather, patting Phil’s hand.

“Mother,” said Phil again, this time a little more firmly.

“I’m only saying,” she said. “They must have been lucky, because you passed all those exams.”

Clint and Phil’s father shared a knowing glance.

“They had Spiderman on,” Heather whispered loudly.

“Mother.”

“These things stick in the mind. You, doing whatever a spider can.” She sighed theatrically.

Phil interrupted whatever was coming next. “You remember we’re not going to be here this evening, don’t you mom?” said Phil.

“I’m not senile, dear,” said Heather. “Much as I sometimes think you’d like me to be.”

“We’re going shopping,” said Joe. “Unfortunately.”

“I’m sure Darcy wouldn’t mind if you gatecrashed her party,” said Clint, rapidly growing to appreciate this new group dynamic and guessing just how much Darcy would get a kick out of getting to know Phil’s parents.

Phil’s dad looked hopeful until he caught his wife’s expression.

“That’s very nice dear, and thank you,” said Heather. “But we need to buy a few things before Megan and the kids join us next week.”

Phil sagged with relief at the same time that his father sagged with disappointment at the thought of their shopping trip.

Phil and Clint waved them goodbye from the doorway.

“That’s my parents,” said Phil. “That’s what they do. They snare you in and make you think they’re a nice little old couple, but really, they’re evil.”

“I like them,” said Clint, and grinned.

“And they like you, too,” said Phil, grinning back. He closed the door and enveloped Clint in a hug. “Sorry about earlier,” he said. “There wasn’t any way to warn you they’d arrived.”

“S’okay,” said Clint. “We’re meeting them for dinner on Saturday, right?”

“Yeah.” Phil smiled at Clint and in a gesture that probably had something to do with his parents, ruffled Clint’s hair.

“Are you heading into school today?” said Clint.

“In five minutes. You going to be okay here?”

“Sure. I’ll set up in the lounge.”

“Need me to hide the remote?” said Phil.

“Nah, you’re fine,” said Clint.

Clint retreated to the lounge with a coffee and started his marking for the day. He was still on his first essay script when Phil interrupted him to say goodbye.

“Thanks,” said Phil, leaning in and kissing him delicately on the lips.

Clint raised his eyebrows. “I haven’t done anything,” he said.

“Yeah, you have,” said Phil, and kissed him again.

Clint worked solidly all day, for once not distracted by his phone or the outside world. It was only when he was driving towards the bar that evening that he thought perhaps he should have checked for any new developments with regards to Community College and the Egg Race. Oh well. Too late to check now. No doubt he’d find out soon.

The car park at Thor’s seemed unusually full, and Clint squeezed into a spot in the corner by the recycling bins. As he walked towards the bar, the opening and closing of the door provided bursts of sound that suggested a raucous party was in full swing.

“Take a shot,” shouted Pepper, holding a tray of shot glasses at eye-level as Clint walked into the room.

“Essay typos, I’m taking bets,” said Tony.

Clint reached forward and took one of the less colourful glasses from the tray.

“Taking bets?” said Clint. “How do you calculate the odds for typos?”

Tony tapped at his temple, and Pepper mimicked him, instead twirling a finger around somewhere near her own temple. The tray, now held in just the one hand, tilted to one side and was rescued by Natasha.

“Are you drunk?” Clint asked Pepper.

“Not drunk. Winning,” said Tony.

“She doesn’t even mark essays,” said Clint, and Tony grinned. Clint downed the shot, then fought his way through to the bar to buy himself a beer. As he reached the counter, Darcy popped up from behind it.

“You’re not working tonight, surely?” said Clint.

“No,” yelled Darcy over the noise. “I’m just finding straws. It’s for a game.” She placed a box of coloured straws on the counter, then poured Clint a beer without him having to ask for it. As he handed over the money, he nodded at Bruce, seated on a stool nearby.

“Brace yourself,” said Bruce. “It’s going to be a long night.”

Clint took the beer proffered by Darcy and raised his glass in salute, then turned round to get a proper view of the bar. Over to his right, Phil was deep in conversation with Steve; Steve patting him on the shoulder, nodding, and leaning in to catch his words. Something competition-related, no doubt. Over in one corner, Natasha appeared to be playing poker with Sam, Thor and Bucky, who was looking even more intense than the last time he’d seen him. Thor’s presence at their table told Clint all he needed to know about who was going to be serving drinks that night. Basically, anyone who wanted one.

Tony, Pepper and now Darcy were playing some sort of game that involved balancing straws, which left Clint and Bruce as the only sober voices of reason. The music and general hubbub of the bar were so loud, Clint didn’t try to make conversation, and just nodded in Bruce’s direction.

“So this is kind of horrible,” yelled Bruce, his expression a little strained.

“In a good way?” Clint yelled back.

Bruce shrugged one shoulder.

“I wasn’t expecting Pepper and Natasha here this early,” said Clint. “Weren’t they filming up at the school today?”

“Funny thing,” said Bruce, smiling. “They changed the time. Did the filming a couple of hours earlier. Strangely, the mysterious photographer didn’t get the memo.”

“Nice,” said Clint, and took a deep draught of his beer.

“You should have a word with Darcy,” said Bruce. “Aside from celebrating her degree, she’s also Pepper’s favourite person right now.”

“Oh?” said Clint.

Bruce smiled enigmatically. “Have a word with her,” he said, barking the words a little to make himself heard. He flapped a hand in Clint’s direction, indicating that Clint should go and check with Darcy before he forgot about it.

“Okay,” said Clint. He took another swig of beer, swayed off his stool and headed back towards the action.

As he approached Darcy, Pepper and Steve, they all took a straw and tried to balance it on their nose. Clint watched bemusedly and didn’t have to wait long before everyone gave up on this game.

“So I hear you saved the day?” Clint asked Darcy.

“Oh, yah,” said Darcy.

“Yes, she did,” said Pepper, nodding her head while trying to balance another straw. “Tell him.”

“Was going to,” said Darcy. She leaned in close to Clint in a conspiratorial manner. “Pep’s drunk,” she whispered very loudly.

Clint was starting to realise that he had a lot of drinking to catch up on before his conversation was on a par with theirs. He reached over and took another shot glass from the abandoned tray; downed the contents, then took another swig of beer from the glass in his other hand.

“You know that photographer? The one who was taking pictures of the teams?”

“Yeah,” said Clint.

“I found him,” said Darcy.

“Lemme guess – a Business School student?”

“Nope,” said Darcy. “History. At least he used to be. Apparently, someone recruited a disgruntled ex-student who left uni without finishing his degree, and got him to take photos.”

“So how did you find him?” said Clint.

“No, no, no,” said Pepper, waving a hand at them. “You’re not telling it right.”

Darcy rolled her eyes.

“So we’re in my office,” said Pepper, “and Darcy had spent all day – and I mean all day – looking at photos of anyone who’s ever taken a business course.”

“There were some ugly mugs in there, let me tell you,” said Darcy.

“And she said...” said Pepper.

“Let me tell it,” said Darcy. “And I said, I don’t know about the Business School, I’m feeling pretty pissed with the History department right now.”

“So she then says...” said Pepper.

“So I asked if there was any way that Pepper could list anyone who’d started a History degree but hadn’t finished,” said Darcy. “Anyway, it was a much shorter list. Pepper has some really cool reports for this kind of thing. Then I just checked the names on the list against the records on the student database.”

“And she found him,” said Pepper.

“So what’re you going to do about it?” said Clint.

“Well, he’s not a current student. He’s not enrolled at the university,” said Pepper.

“And he’s not part of Tony’s film crew either,” said Steve. “So while he’s allowed on campus – any campus – as a member of the public, he’s not allowed to use photos – or videos – of students without their written permission.”

“Because they aren’t covered by the agreement the teams signed for the filming. It’s a legal thing,” said Darcy.

“So the video of your team, Steve?” said Clint.

“Was kind of illegal, yeah,” said Darcy.

“He’s been reported,” said Steve. “Not sure it’ll do any good, but still.”

“Hey,” said Darcy. “He can’t use any of the other photos he took, either.”

“Honestly? I kind of feel sorry for the guy,” said Steve.

“Have another drink,” said Darcy. “That’ll make it better.”

Steve raised an eyebrow.

Clint caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and looked up to see Phil smiling at him. He suddenly remembered something he’d been meaning to talk to Phil about for the last few days.

“Excuse me while I go talk to my boyfriend,” he said.

“Hey,” said Phil when Clint finally reached him. He leaned forward and placed a discrete kiss on Clint’s cheek.

“Hey,” said Clint.

“Good day?”

“Yeah, actually, can we talk?”

“Sure. What’s up?” said Phil.

“I’ve been meaning to mention something,” said Clint.

Thor bustled past them and finally, finally turned down the volume on the sound system. Slightly.

“Okay,” said Phil cautiously.

“I think I may have accidentally outed you the other day.”

“Right,” said Phil, still more cautiously.

Clint raised his eyes to Phil’s and briefly related the conversation that he’d had with Mindie and her sister in Tanner’s stores a couple of days before.

“Right,” said Phil, and shrugged. “Oh well.”

“Oh well?” said Clint. “Is that all?”

“Well, there’s nothing I can do about it,” said Phil.

“I really am sorry,” said Clint, suddenly feeling worse about the situation.

“No, it’s okay,” said Phil with a shrug. “It was bound to come out sooner or later.”

“Er, right,” said Clint.

“No,” said Phil. “Not like that. I... er. I’ve made you my emergency contact. On my school records. I can’t see that staying private forever.”

“You have?” said Clint.

“I hope that’s okay?” said Phil.

Clint stared at him. “Of course. Sure, it’s okay. You just caught me by surprise. I mean, I wasn’t expecting it.”

Phil’s expression was fond, and a little bemused. “So it’s okay,” he said.

“More than okay,” said Clint, surprised, because this was serious relationship stuff. He suddenly realised that he should change his own emergency contact details into something more meaningful. Because currently, his emergency contact was his PhD supervisor. In other words, Tony Stark.

Clint smiled at Phil, leaned in, and kissed him lightly on the lips.

“We’ll have none of that here,” Tony’s voice announced loudly over the noise of the bar. Clint looked up in time to see Tony grasp Steve by the shoulders, reel him in, and plant a resounding kiss on Steve’s lips.

And that set the tone for the rest of the evening.

Picture this. Two hours later or thereabouts, Clint is lying face down in a pool of spilt beer and peanut crumbs, surrounded by the noise of friendly chatter. Somewhere else in the bar, a fluid female voice, confident and sober loudly announces, “He wrote a book, you know.”

“Yeah, me too,” says Tony Stark.

“No, really?” says the female voice. “You must be awfully clever.”

Whatever Tony says in response to this, Clint thankfully doesn’t hear it.

Finally, before Clint succumbs to the swirling darkness, a male voice whispers in his ear. “Clint, it’s Joe. Phil’s dad. We’ve come to give you both a ride home.”


	26. The Lost Weekend

Clint was in hell, and he was keeping his eyes shut for as long as possible. His stomach was apparently fighting a battle against his ribcage and losing. A movement in the bed beside him caused the mattress to dip, and Clint’s head swam.

Phil groaned loudly, lurched out of bed and into their en suite.

Clint grabbed a spare pillow and flattened it over his own face. It didn’t quite drown out the distressing noises from the bathroom.

“I’m taking a shower,” Phil croaked a few minutes later. “Do you want to use the bathroom first?”

Still hidden by the pillow, Clint tried to shake his head and the room swam once more. “No,” he groaned.

Phil’s footsteps padded away across the floor, and the shower hummed and hissed as it started up. Clint was just drifting off into a daze when there was a knock on the door.

“I brought you boys some coffee,” said Heather. “I’ll just leave it here.”

“Urrgh,” said Clint. “Thanks.” He pulled the sheets up around himself and his memory reminded him that this particular bit of damage had already been done.

“Megan and the kids will be here in about half an hour,” said Heather, disgustingly cheerful. “Also, there’s a parcel waiting for you.”

“Nrgghht,” said Clint.

The door closed and Clint was left in blissful silence with only the hum of the bathroom fan reverberating through the wall and the smell of coffee to keep him company.

He peeked out from behind the pillow and struggled into a sitting position to drink his coffee.

Phil appeared a couple of minutes later, a towel wrapped around his waist and smelling wonderfully clean and fresh. “You’ve been busy,” he said, eyeing up the remaining mug of coffee.

“Your mother,” said Clint.

“Ah,” said Phil. He sat down on the side of the bed and took a long sip of coffee. He appeared to be thinking something over. Even with a hangover, Clint took a moment to appreciate the view. “I suspect she enjoys seeing you naked,” Phil said.

“Don’t,” said Clint. “Please, don’t go there.”

Phil placed a still-damp hand on Clint’s belly.

“Megan’ll be here soon,” said Clint, thinking about everything they could be doing if he wasn’t still drunk and they didn’t have a house full of visitors.

“Shower,” said Phil.

Clint sighed, finished the rest of his coffee, and stumbled out of bed.

When he eventually made it downstairs it was to find the living room packed full of people. Not just Phil, his parents, his sister and her kids, but also a disturbingly sober-looking Tony Stark. It was, needless to say, pandemonium.

Hayley, Megan’s middle child, self-confessed Tony Stark addict but also now a desperately-mature ten year old, appeared conflicted. The keenness of her interest warred with her natural shyness and the unreal situation of discovering her TV hero in her uncle’s house. Emma, the youngest child, had no similar qualms and was happily bouncing around at Tony’s side. Likewise, Pippa, now fourteen, was almost flirting.

Megan waved at Clint and gestured towards a fresh mug of coffee waiting for him. There wasn’t enough coffee in the world to help Clint cope with this situation.

“...can actually fly,” said Tony. “May have to kick Sam off the astronomy tower to find out.”

“You have an astronomy tower?” said Emma.

“He’s joking, Ems,” said Pippa. “You are joking, aren’t you, Professor?”

Tony winked at her, shameless. “Yeah, we have a tower. But Hufflepuffs like your uncle aren’t allowed up it.”

“Tony,” said Phil, rolling his eyes.

“He doesn’t want to go up your tower, dear,” Phil’s mother informed Tony.

As one, the room turned to face Phil’s mother, who happened to be standing close to Phil.

“What?” she said. “I’m just saying what everyone else is thinking.”

Phil blushed furiously in a flush that seemed to work its way up from the soles of his shoes to the top of his head, while Megan snorted into her coffee.

“Why are you here?” Phil asked Tony.

Tony shrugged. “Thought I’d take you all out to breakfast.”

“Steve not joining us?” said Clint.

“Marking,” said Tony.

“Steve wanted you out of the house,” said Clint.

“I’ll have you know that I heard you had some important visitors, thought I’d drop by,” said Tony. “Donuts are okay for you girls, aren’t they?”

There was a general round of ‘yesses’ and nods as all agreed that this was better than hanging around and politely waiting for Phil and Clint to sober up enough to make a decision about what they wanted for breakfast. In the end, they took three cars; Phil’s sister and the girls somehow all managing to cram themselves into the custom-made sports car Tony had parked outside. Tony had also managed to cram something else into the car with them, and as Clint finally took a seat at the two tables they’d pushed together, he placed a large parcel beside Clint’s place setting.

“Well?” said Tony, as Clint flipped open his napkin and placed it across his lap. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

Clint looked at Tony sceptically. “You know this is private, right?” he said.

Tony shrugged.

“You know what private means, right?” said Clint.

“Open it,” said Tony.

Phil sighed. “You’re not going to hear the end of it,” he said. “And it’s probably best if you open it now, before you get covered in frosting.”

“Right,” said Clint. “But please, everyone else – I really don’t want sugar, or coffee, or anything else on these. These are the only copies I get.”

Stark made a botched job of crossing his heart in a promise while everyone else nodded.

“Tony, if you so much as mark these, I’ll expect you to buy me another half-dozen copies,” said Clint.

“If he marks those, I’ll stand over him until he buys enough copies to push your book into the Amazon best sellers list,” said Phil.

“Hey, who says I don’t have it on pre-order already? I mean, I was part of this whole thing,” said Tony.

Clint took a deep breath and cut the tape on the parcel with his pocket knife. He gazed up at Phil as he pulled the wrapping paper aside to reveal several copies of a book. Clint’s book. Phil smiled.

“Let’s see it then,” said Tony, grabbing the top copy from the pile and ruining Clint’s moment. Clint watched Tony leaf through the first few pages until he found the dedication and acknowledgements, which was where Tony’s own name was mentioned alongside the capacity in which he’d helped Clint with his research.

“You want me to sign these?” said Tony, reaching for the pen in his inside pocket.

Clint, still holding the knife that he’d used to slit the parcel open, tightened his grip and scowled at Tony.

Tony’s hand moved away from his pocket. “Well alright then,” he said.

Clint took the second copy from the pile and took a few moments to appreciate the cover artwork: something simple and understated that he’d haggled for hours about with his publisher. It still hadn’t really sunk in – that he’d managed to write and edit this book himself. He flipped the book over to examine the back, then turned it back over again and started to flip through it.

“It’s so small,” said Clint. “This is four years’ research.” He waved the book around.

“Can I see?” said Emma, unable to control herself any more.

“Sure,” said Clint, handing her another copy from the stack.

“But be careful,” said Phil.

“I knooow,” said Emma.

The remaining copies were passed around the table and the donuts and coffee went untasted until everyone had taken a look. As the copies were handed back to Clint, Phil’s family and Tony attacked their breakfast.

“It looks good,” said Phil, gazing over at Clint. “And thank you,” he added in a whisper.

Clint shrugged with one shoulder. So far, no one else had noticed – or mentioned anything about – the personal dedication in the front of the book. It was to Phil, but hopefully the message was cryptic enough to escape critical remarks from Tony. Who knew? Sometimes, Tony could be remarkably subtle. He just didn’t like people to know about it.

“You’ve written books, haven’t you, Tony?” said Emma, through a mouthful of frosting.

“Loads,” said Tony.

“It must be difficult to fit writing in around teaching,” said Megan.

“You’re assuming he does any work,” said Clint.

“Hey,” said Tony, then grinned. “Don’t mock the talent.”

“The talent for not working?” said Clint.

“What do you teach, Mr Stark?” said Phil’s father, Joe.

“Same as him,” said Tony, pointing at Clint and telling a white lie that only Clint and Phil would fully understand. “Only I tend to get more involved in the actual engineering side of things. Building stuff. We’re one of the only universities in the country that lets students major in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine. That’s my baby.”

“Cool,” said Hayley.

“Come round if you like, have a look,” said Tony, as if this was nothing.

Hayley’s eyes opened wide. For a ten year-old obsessed with Tony’s television programme, this was almost a dream come true. “Can I, mum?” she said.

Phil’s sister had no defence against her desperate expression. “At the university? Sure,” she said. “But we have to sort out a time with Professor Stark. Isn’t that right?” she asked Tony for confirmation.

Tony’s nonchalant shrug was no help whatsoever. “Give you a tour personally,” he added as an afterthought.

The family fell to talking about their schedules for the next couple of days. Phil’s family planned to spend the rest of the afternoon sight-seeing and shopping, and would meet up with Phil and Clint for dinner on Sunday evening. Phil and Clint then wouldn’t see them again until the Egg Race. This was, after all, meant to be a holiday for Phil’s family, but a typical working week for Phil and Clint. It took another hour for them to finish their breakfast and return to Phil’s house so that Megan could collect her own car. As Megan and the kids waved goodbye, Clint took his stack of books and stroked the cover of the top-most one before placing them on top of one of his bookcases.

“Work?” said Phil, knowing what was to come next.

“Marking,” said Clint, and his shoulders sagged.

Sunday morning dawned bright and clear and pleasantly warm: blissfully quiet compared with the previous morning. Clint lay with the covers slipping down from his shoulders, content in the knowledge that he had finished marking the last essays he’d bought home, and would only have a few more pieces of work to collect from the university the following day. After that – well, it was the Egg Race, then a couple of months of recuperation, research, admin and re-writing of course material before the next semester began. Okay, well, maybe that thought didn’t end on such a relaxing note as Clint had anticipated.

“Hey,” said Phil softly, leaning over him and kissing his shoulder.

“Hey yourself,” said Clint, turning to face him. Clint stroked Phil’s face as Phil leaned forward to kiss him. Clint’s tongue licked Phil’s lips, slipped between them and delved deeply into Phil’s mouth. His tongue stroked alongside Phil’s as Phil moved over and across, on top of him, comfortable between Clint’s open legs.

Finally, after weeks of working too hard, they had time to luxuriate in this. Clint closed his eyes as Phil spent long moments sucking and licking the sensitive pressure points where Clint’s neck met his shoulders. Clint tangled his fingers in Phil’s hair, arched up to meet him, both hard and definitely ready.

“Think I left a mark,” said Phil, rubbing a finger over part of Clint’s neck.

“Don’t care,” said Clint. He grasped Phil’s arms and flipped them both over, rubbing against Phil as he did so.

“Now I’m hanging off the edge of the bed,” said Phil.

“Don’t care,” said Clint.

“Oh, right,” said Phil, and grinned mischievously. Clint found out why seconds later, as Phil’s hands launched a sneak attack on Clint, finding the soft and tender ticklish spots below his ribs. Clint grasped Phil’s hands to stop his assault and Phil moved lower. When Phil’s face was level with Clint’s cock, he kissed the skin of Clint’s belly, teased him with fleeting licks and kisses before finally taking the head of Clint’s cock in his mouth.

“Ahh,” said Clint, as Phil took more of Clint inside and Clint once more carded his fingers through Phil’s hair.

For several minutes, Phil worked his mouth up and down, taking Clint as deep as he dared. Just as things were starting to get a little too enjoyable, Phil let Clint slide from his mouth, and moved back up the bed so that his face was level with Clint’s. Clint’s hand slipped down Phil’s side and grasped one of Phil’s buttocks.

“You stopped,” said Clint, unnecessarily.

“Other plans,” said Phil.

“Oh yeah?”

“Wanna put that to good use?” said Phil, looking down towards Clint’s erection.

Clint raised his eyebrows. “And that wasn’t?”

“Fuck me,” said Phil.

“Okay.”

Without moving from Phil’s side, Clint attempted to reach for his bedside cabinet. His hand flapped around ineffectually, still a few inches from the drawer.

“You put everything away,” said Clint.

“I did,” said Phil. He reached over and opened the drawer to retrieve the lube and condoms and placed them next to Clint. “Me or you?” he asked.

“I’ll do it,” said Clint. “For both of us.” He unscrewed the lube, squeezed out a generous portion and spread it around on his fingers. Phil pushed the covers aside as Clint’s hand moved around behind him, finding the pucker of Phil’s ass.

“You really are very good at this,” said Phil, as Clint slid the first finger into him. He curled it to reach the sweet spot and immediately followed it with a second finger. Nine months into their relationship, preparation was mostly for enjoyment and applying lubricant.

“Not too much,” said Phil, leaning against him and gasping. “I, er, ah.”

“Okay,” said Clint. He gentled his movements and slid his fingers in and out more slowly.

“You’re killing me here,” said Phil.

Clint kissed him and slid his fingers out of Phil’s body. He quickly rolled on a condom and added more lube.

“You know... I really don’t mind without the condom,” said Phil.

“Okay,” said Clint. “Another time?”

Phil nodded.

“How d’you want me?” said Clint.

“Lie there,” said Phil, and moved on top of him again.

Clint grasped the base of his cock to hold himself steady as Phil positioned himself. One hand braced on the bed, the other moving round to his ass, Phil gradually sunk down onto him. When Clint was deep inside, Phil moved his hand so that both hands were on the mattress, framing Clint’s face.

“Hey,” said Clint, gazing up at him.

“Hey,” said Phil, starting to move. Clint matched his rhythm, stroking Phil as he did so, his hand still slick with lube.

“Not so much,” said Phil. “Keep it light.”

“Like this?” Clint applied a light, steady pressure to Phil’s cock, and Phil’s eyes closed as he increased his own rhythm.

“Okay, okay, okay,” said Phil, his voice tailing off into wordless sounds.

“I’m close,” said Clint, feeling himself grow inside Phil as Phil’s muscles tightened around him.

“I, uh,” said Phil.

Phil moved down and Clint rose up to meet him; their breathing and the soft sticky sounds of sex the only noise until Phil groaned and came, and Clint followed him.

Phil slowly toppled forward until his chest was against Clint’s. He kissed Clint’s lips. “Gotta move,” he said. He rolled off of Clint as Clint grasped the condom to hold it in place.

Clint removed it and reached for the Kleenex as Phil lay sated on the bed beside him.

“Your turn,” said Clint, cleaning himself up and positioning the box between them.

“Yeah,” said Phil, smiling but not moving.

“Well okay then,” said Clint.


	27. The Great Egg Rage

“You’re looking pleased with yourself. One might almost say smug,” said a morose-looking Tony Stark as Clint arrived outside the admin office on Tuesday morning.

“Just collecting my last batch to mark,” said Clint. “You?”

Tony inclined his head towards two large cardboard boxes resting against the wall. “Had a productive weekend.”

“Really?” said Clint, incredulous. “Seriously? Why do you leave them to stack up like that?”

“Hey,” said Tony. “Not my fault. I’ve had to pick up someone else’s slack.”

“You should say something.”

“I am doing,” said Tony.

“What’re you talking about?” said Clint.

Tony examined his fingernails. “The Race? Who called the caterers? The guys that look after the seating? The local press? Storm FM? Who sorted out the grounds with ground keeping, the parking arrangements, the portaloos and the additional supplies with housekeeping? Who got the goddamn first aid people on board, and lest we ever forget, health and safety? Who checked with the film crew that they knew when to be here and what they were expected to do on the day?”

“Hey, I did that last one,” Clint interrupted. “And I sourced the barrels.”

“Which I spray-painted.”

“Personally?”

“Well, I got my students to do it, which amounts to the same thing.”

Clint and Tony scowled at one another.

“I sorted the merchandising,” said Clint. “And Facebook.”

“Hah!” said Tony.

“And I liaised with the schools. And arranged the student helpers.”

“Hah!”

“Well,” said Clint, struggling to think of something else he’d contributed, “you have all of these guys on speed dial from last year.”

“And I was hoping never to have to call them again,” said Tony. “And hey, I have it on good authority you’re not even keeping an eye on the tickets.”

“They’re all allocated!” said Clint. His eyes fell on the small stack of essays he’d marked over the weekend. “Hang on,” he said. “You were out with Phil’s sister’s kids all day Saturday. And you gate-crashed our family do last night. When did you find time to mark that lot?”

Clint was seized by the sneaking suspicion that maybe, just maybe, Tony had delegated the work to Emma.

“I won’t find any marked in glitter pen, will I?”

“I’ll have you know that glitter pen is my trademark,” said Tony.

“Funny, ‘cos the draft of my PhD is marked up in crayon,” said Clint.

“Which I considered age-appropriate,” Tony snapped back.

Pepper’s office door clicked open and she looked out at them with a bemused expression.

“You’re late,” said Tony.

“Well, I had to give you boys time to finish arguing,” said Pepper. She looked back and forth between them. “Unless this is a sex thing. In which case I don’t want to know about it.”

Tony, sadly, was still in the mood to cause trouble. “How’s Natasha?” he asked.

“Delicious,” said Pepper.

Tony’s mouth fell open as Pepper effectively shut his argument down permanently.

“Well, come on in, then,” said Pepper, unlocking the door to the admin office and gesturing them inside.

Clint wandered in, shortly followed by Tony and the first of his two boxes. He handed his marked essays over to Pepper and was collecting his final batch of work when Tony stumbled back inside carrying the second box. Pepper, now heading back to her office, stopped them with a cough as they both attempted to follow her out of the room.

“Two things,” she announced, nonchalantly looking at them over her shoulder.

“Yeah?” said Tony.

“This betting pool. It ends now.”

Clint chanced a glance over at Tony and much to his surprise, saw the shock on Tony’s face. Not Tony, then? If that was the case, then Clint’s money was on Thor.

Without allowing them time to respond, Pepper continued. “And you might want to check the water supply to the field.”

“Oh?” said Tony.

“What’s up?” said Clint.

“Someone,” Pepper enunciated the word carefully, but her temper showed through. “Some despicable person has been digging up the field. Right, as it happens, by the pipe that takes the water out to the far side. The pipe without which none of your competition entries – none of your eggs will go anywhere.”

“You can’t possibly believe it was one of us?” said Clint.

“No,” said Pepper.

Tony and Clint looked at each other with puzzled expressions, then by mutual unspoken agreement, left Pepper’s office at a jog.

It was a long time since Clint had visited their sports fields, so the changes in advance of this week’s events seemed quite marked. A groundskeeper drover a large mower up and down what was usually their soccer pitch, cutting the grass and removing the last traces of the pitch markings. Someone else appeared to be taking measurements and was pegging out rectangles on the ground. Up in the stand on the far side of the pitch, however, a really unexpected sight caught their attention.

“Hey, slow down,” said Tony, grabbing Clint’s shirt from behind. “Is that Bruce?” Tony let go of Clint’s shirt and pulled up alongside him.

“With Lauffeson,” said Clint.

“Boy, your eyes are good,” said Tony.

Even from this distance, Clint could see that they were arguing. Lauffeson’s body language suggested that he was posturing, taunting. He moved in close to Bruce; whispered something in his ear then drew back smiling slyly.

Bruce exploded. There was no other way Clint could describe it. Lauffeson casually took a step back as Bruce clenched his fists, shaking, his face reddening as he roared in Loki’s direction. As Clint and Tony ran towards them, their words became more audible.

“If you had any idea...” said Bruce.

“Oh, but I do,” Lauffeson interrupted, his voice smooth. “All those long nights spent mentoring the innocent. How could one resist?”

Bruce sprung at Loki, who once again darted back, steadying himself with a hand against the seating.

“What’s going on here?” said Tony, reaching Bruce and Lauffeson first.

“Exactly what I’m trying to find out,” said Loki, “I appear to have touched a nerve.” He smiled, and paused. “Your entire school is corrupt, and I intend to show it. If I have to take it apart one man at a time, so be it.”

“Are you okay?” Clint asked Bruce, who appeared not to hear him. “Bruce?” said Clint again, reaching out to touch his shoulder.

“Don’t,” snarled Bruce, and Clint snatched his hand back.

Up close, Bruce looked awful; the skin of his face, neck and hands red, florid and swollen.

“Oh, no,” said Lauffeson, “there are other ways to calm this one.”

Bruce pounced, but Tony threw himself between them as Loki took another slow, calculated step back. Tony collided with Bruce and was knocked onto his back, Bruce landing heavily on top of him. As Tony lay there winded and Bruce rolled off of him, Lauffeson took one final step backwards, then turned and strode off.

“What the hell was that?” said Tony, still lying on his back on the ground. “As if I couldn’t guess.”

“Don’t ask,” said Bruce, dusting himself down.

“I’m asking,” said Tony.

Bruce growled.

“Hey now, big fella,” said Tony. “I’m on your side.”

Bruce got to his feet as Tony rolled over onto his knees and also stood up.

“Well?” said Tony.

Bruce didn’t appear to be in the mood for explanations, but he did at least seem to be calming down. As he watched Lauffeson’s back retreating, he shrugged. “He was suggesting... something.”

“We worked that out,” said Tony.

“That I was having inappropriate relationships with my students.”

“Which you’re not.”

“Of course I’m not,” said Bruce.

“So?” said Tony. “Don’t let it get to you.”

Bruce scowled at him.

“Easier said than done,” said Clint, firmly on Bruce’s side. “That guy has a way of getting into your head.”

“He was suggesting... no, never mind. That I’d somehow been caught in a compromising position with students from the girls’ school,” said Bruce.

“Seriously?” said Clint.

“Seriously?” said Tony. “I thought he meant that hairy guy.”

“Bucky,” said Clint.

Bruce sighed. “Who is not one of my students, and is anyway well into his twenties. Hardly ‘an innocent’. So.”

“But you are banging him, right?” said Tony.

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose. “Tony,” he remonstrated. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Pepper said....”

“Oh, right,” said Bruce. “She sent me an email. I was just checking out the damage.”

“So?”

Bruce shrugged. “There’s not much to see. Maintenance has taken care of it.”

“Show me anyway,” said Tony.

Bruce dusted himself down and led them back down to the pitch and over to one corner. An obvious recent repair indicated where someone had tried to crimp closed the metal of the water standpipe and wrench the pipe from its moorings.

“Yeah, we’re gonna have to keep a closer eye on this,” said Tony.

“Who do you have in mind for that job, exactly?” said Clint.

“Right,” said Tony.

Clint’s question went unanswered.

Nevertheless, Clint did find himself walking past the soccer pitch several times the following day. By Tuesday afternoon the entire pitch was a hive of activity, with the cleaning and repair crew washing down the seating and sprucing up the paintwork.

Clint drifted back to his office to complete his final batch of marking, then squared away still more race admin before locking up his office. The bustle in the corridors suggested that one or more exams had just finished, and as he passed Steve’s counsellor’s office, he saw several people waiting for him, including a despondent-looking Mindie Tanner.

“Hi,” he said, drawing up alongside her.

“Hey,” said Mindie. “Do you know if Mr Rogers is in?”

“Dunno,” said Clint, wracking his brains in an attempt to remember Steve’s schedule. “He teaches part-time at the Community College.”

“Oh, right,” said Mindie.

“Anything I can do?” said Clint.

“Nah, it’s okay. It’s just... no, it’s nothing,” said Mindie.

“Right,” said Clint, now more worried about what her problem might be.

“I’ll wait,” said Mindie.

“If you’re sure,” said Clint.

Mindie appeared to consider the best way to phrase something. “You remember my dad, right?” she whispered.

“Sure,” said Clint, keeping his tone light.

Mindie’s gaze suddenly moved to somewhere over Clint’ shoulder, and Clint turned to see Steve jogging down the corridor.

“Sorry I’m late,” said Steve. “I was convening.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out his office keys and unlocked the door. “I can only give each of you ten minutes,” he announced, all business. “Anything more, I’m afraid you’ll have to make a proper appointment. Who’s first?”

Mindie raised her hand.

“Okay, then,” said Steve, ushering her in. He raised an eyebrow in Clint’s direction, while Mindie now appeared to forget that she’d been talking to Clint only seconds before.

Clint shook his head; a non-verbal signal to Steve that he didn’t know what the problem was. Whatever this was about, thought Clint, it couldn’t be good. But Steve was on the case. Clint turned and headed towards his office, and forgot all about it.

On Wednesday morning, while students took the last exams of the academic year, the staff met to discuss the plans for the following day. Very little came out of the meeting other than a general agreement that they were all (with the exception of Tony Stark), completely and utterly sick of the Egg Race, essay marking, exam marking, and indeed anything even remotely connected with the university. It had been a hectic year and they were all looking forward to a holiday, or at least what passed for one when no one could leave their emails unanswered.

Natasha drew Clint to one side as the meeting drew to a close. “We think someone tried to hack the network again yesterday,” she said. “But they didn’t get in.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t worth mentioning.”

“Right,” said Clint. “And yet you did.”

“You were looking too relaxed,” said Natasha, very much with tongue in cheek.

“Thanks.”

A thought occurred to Clint as he watched Pepper stride out of the meeting room. “Hey. What’s this about a betting pool?”

Natasha watched Pepper as her heels click-clicked down the corridor. “You want in?”

Clint shrugged. “Depends.”

“Which teams do you think are going to be disqualified?”

“Oh no,” said Clint, shaking his head. He paused to think about it. “Fifty on Lauffeson.”

“Fifty it is,” said Natasha, shaking his hand. “Give you the odds later.”

“Not your pool?” said Clint.

Natasha feigned surprise. “Pepper wouldn’t speak to me again.”

“If she ever found out.”

Natasha smiled. “Anyway, it’s Thor.”

“Well, that’s not a surprise,” said Clint.

“Want to change your bet, or are you still okay betting on his brother?”

Clint grinned.

“Yeah, I thought so too,” said Natasha.

Back in his office, Clint checked the merchandising for the event. (What? Shut up. He just didn’t get round to it before, okay?) Then he persuaded Sam to help him shift the boxes down to the stand the following day. The Facebook feed seemed to be ticking along nicely, as did the Twitter feed (thanks again mainly to Sam), and by the time Clint packed up to head home, he was feeling a vague sense of unease because everything seemed to be running to schedule and nothing had gone wrong... yet.

As he stepped out into the corridor, his foot clinked against something on the floor: a bag containing something wrapped in tissue paper. With some trepidation, he bent to pick it up, only to discover that the bag contained a mug and a thank you card signed by some of his students. A fragment of the price tag remained on the bottom of the mug, and Clint could see quite clearly that it was from Tanner’s stores. If that hadn’t been enough of a clue, the mug was decorated with the same cartoon porcupines that had been on the Valentines card he’d bought earlier in the year.

Clint turned the mug over in his palms and felt a lump rise in his throat. Somehow this fragile little gift was more significant to him than his name on a book. It wasn’t recognition of his research; it was recognition of his ability as a teacher. It showed that he’d reached people and made them feel good about learning, and that was what he’d really gotten into this line of work for. He knew that Bruce felt the same way, and he was pretty sure that somewhere, even Tony had a stash of mementoes from students.

Clint drove home, feeling a mixture of pleasure and uncertainty about what was to happen the following day. His nervous anxiety continued through the evening until he eventually cracked, made his excuses to Phil, and escaped to the archery range. He shot arrows until the range closed, then went home and didn’t sleep at all.


	28. The Great Egg Race

“Wow, you look like crap,” said an overly-cheerful Darcy. She handed Clint a large take-out cup of coffee and smiled at him as she took a dramatic slurp from her own cup.

“Thanks,” said Clint, scowling at her over the top of his cup.

“All part of the service,” said Darcy. “What time did you get here?”

Clint looked skywards and frowned at the birds singing loudly from the trees nearby. It was still early. So early, in fact, that the overnight dew was still heavy on the grass of the soccer pitch. “About seven. What’re you doing here?”

“I’m just heading home,” said Darcy.

“And yet you thought to buy me coffee. I’m touched.”

Darcy shrugged. “It wasn’t for you.” She let the statement hang in the air but Clint refused to rise to the bait. She grinned. “I’m off. See you in a couple of hours.”

“Right,” said Clint.

Darcy wandered in the direction of the campus accommodation. “Thanks for the coffee!” yelled Clint, finally remembering his manners when she was nearly out of sight.

Once he was alone again, Clint wandered the grounds and checked that everything was in place. When he couldn’t put it off any longer, he retreated to his office and started to collect together everything he and Sam would need to take down to the pitch later. He wasted twenty minutes checking Twitter and Facebook, skimming his newsfeeds but not actually reading any of the comments. He also refused to listen to or even think about the interview that Tony Stark was at that moment giving on Storm FM’s breakfast show. Because that way, madness lay.

At about a quarter to nine, the honking of a car horn in the courtyard made Clint dash to his window. It came as a surprise mostly because the courtyard could only be accessed via footpaths and a bicycle track, and was completely off-limits to traffic.

Clint threw open his window and leaned out.

Tony sat beaming at him from the driver’s seat of a hotrod-red open-top sports car; the tyres and bodywork splashed with mud from where he’d driven cross-country. He waved at Clint, then shouted up to him, “Get down here.”

“Why?” Clint yelled back.

“Just get down here,” said Tony. Then he started to sound his horn in such a way that Clint had no choice.

“What is it?” said Clint, when he arrived out of breath and angry beside Tony’s car a couple of minutes later.

“I want you to come try on your costume,” said Tony.

“Costume?”

“Yeah, costume,” Tony bawled. He opened his car door and stepped out, straight into a flowerbed.

From head to toe, Tony was dressed in a long, flowing robe, with a vivid purple sash over one shoulder. He reached over onto the passenger seat and retrieved some kind of wreath made from leaves sprayed gold, which he placed on his head at a jaunty angle. As he straightened up to grin at Clint, his ornate leather sandals sank further into the mud.

“I’m not wearing a fucking toga, Tony,” said Clint, struggling to take in the scene before him. He started to storm off, then stopped. “And you’re not showing Phil’s nieces round campus dressed like that either!” he yelled over his shoulder.

The sounds of Tony’s evil laughter followed him all the way back to his office.

Ten minutes later, Clint was down near the soccer pitch, standing with his hands on his hips watching portable toilets being unloaded from a flatbed truck while Sam set up the stand from which he’d organise their group of student helpers. Tony sauntered up, now, thankfully, wearing a suit.

“Want to make an easy grand?” he asked.

Clint looked at him, raised an eyebrow and said nothing. Out of the corner of his eye, Clint noticed Sam tense up and adopt a pose that suggested he was pretending not to overhear their conversation.

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” said Tony. “Thor’s not taking any more bets.”

“Right,” said Clint. “So?”

“I have a bet with the camera crew,” said Tony. “That you won’t strip down and get oiled up before the trophies are handed out.”

“What? How do you even?”

Sam made a sound that suggested that he was trying to hide his laughter.

Tony shrugged. “Gladiator? Ancient competitions? Death match? Should be an easy grand for you. Coupla hundred if you only strip to the waist.”

“I don’t want to even know....”

Tony grinned. “Hey, Sam! Wanna join in?”

The suppressed chuckle that Clint had heard from Sam’s direction stopped suddenly.

“Phil’s family are going to be here, remember?” said Clint. “And this is my job we’re talking about. Anyway, don’t you have a film crew to annoy?”

“Already taken care of,” said Tony. “They said to give them five minutes. Thought I’d help out here for a bit.”

“Steve’s a saint,” Clint said, not for the first time.

“Hardly,” said Tony. “Steve wanted you bronzed and standing on a plinth, and trust me, that stuff never comes off.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Clint.

“Whatever,” said Tony. “But FYI, but Steve has a filthy mind.”

“Yeah, right.”

Tony shrugged. “Poor guy sits around at night, wondering how we can lure you away from The Administrator and over to the Dark Side.” Tony said ‘The Administrator’ as if it were Phil’s wrestling name, but he paired the voice effect with an examination of his fingernails, so the overall result was extraordinarily camp. “Wants you to join our love,” he added, sighing melodramatically. With that, he pretended to see something interesting in the distance, and wandered off.

“Clint?” said Sam.

“No, I’m okay,” said Clint, realising that whatever Tony’s intention, his pre-race anxiety had entirely gone.

“Not that,” said Sam, pointing. “Thor’s here with the barrels.”

For the next two hours, Clint barely stood still. He helped set up the water barrels for the teams, chatted with the film crew about the day’s activities and where he needed to stand, oversaw the setting up of the catering wagons, and caught up with the groups of students who were selling the merchandise and distributing programs. At noon, Phil’s family arrived and were whisked off on their tour of campus by Tony. At one PM, Sam called to let him know that the first of the teams had arrived and wanted to know where to set up their kit, and after that, it got really busy. The next time Clint thought to check his watch, his stomach was grumbling furiously and it was nearly two PM. Uplifting music was piping out of the speaker system, and flashing lights from the stands told Clint that the man had arrived to set up their electronic scoreboard.

Clint was helping his team from Sheldon High School while the summer sun beat down on the back of his neck when Thor sidled over to him and drew him to one side.

“It is a majestic sight, is it not,” he said.

“It’s chaos,” said Clint.

“Aye, ‘tis fine,” said Thor, taking a deep breath.

Clint glanced over at him.

“I understand you have had some ‘issues’,” said Thor, in what passed for a whisper.

“Some,” said Clint.

“I believe I may have seen some of this myself.”

“Explain?”

“Last night, when we were checking the truck, we found an intruder.”

Clint heard the sounds of heavy breathing behind him, and turned to see Tony Stark, carrying part of the water-clock that he’d used to demonstrate time-keeping at the start of the academic year. “Let me guess, he came in truder window,” Tony said, stumbling past.

“It is possible,” said Thor.

“You think someone came to the brewery for what? To sabotage the truck?”

“To sabotage the barrels. It is common knowledge that we are supplying them for this event.”

“That’s a bit of a stretch,” said Clint, watching Tony start to set up his water-clock at the side of the pitch.

“You think? Heimdall apprehended the man and delivered him to the police. He was carrying a drill.”

“Yeah, maybe,” said Clint, still not convinced that anyone would go to these sorts of lengths for a school competition.

“You remain unconvinced?” said Thor, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “I have a photograph.”

He flipped his phone around so that Clint could see the screen. Clint’s expression told Thor all he needed to know.

“You recognise this man.”

The guy looked a little rougher than when Clint had last seen him, but Clint was positive. It was one of the men that Clint had seen with Lauffeson, late at night in the car park, many months ago.

“Yeah,” said Clint. “I do.”

“Fortunate your barrels were stored in Stark’s garage, then.”

Tony walked back towards them, presumably on his way to get the rest of the water-clock. “Luck had nothing to do with it,” he said. “By the way, Emma’s waving at you.”

Clint turned and saw Phil’s family, seated in a row in one of the stands. He waved back. With less than an hour to go, the first of the spectators were starting to arrive; mostly the families of the team members.

Clint leaned in to whisper to Thor. “Your betting pool. Is it still open?”

“For you, it is,” said Thor, “however, the odds on my brother’s team have fallen quite considerably.”

Clint grinned.

Emma’s wave had turned into a beckoning gesture now, and Phil’s sister Megan was also motioning for Clint to join them. He dashed up the steps towards them.

“Clint!” said Megan, as he drew near. The others said hello, ending with a “Hi, Uncle Clint,” from Emma.

“Hey, Emms,” said Clint. “No Phil yet?”

“He’s there!” said Megan, exasperated. “With Tony? And the team from his school?”

Clint suddenly saw him, in amongst the throng down on the pitch.

“Really, Clint. He’s been there for ages,” said Megan.

Clint smiled sheepishly, then rallied. “What’s he doing down there?” He wondered. “He’s supposed to be with the judges.”

“Anyway, I don’t mean to keep you, I can see you’re busy. Someone thought you’d probably skipped lunch,” said Megan. She reached into her bag and retrieved a sandwich and a can of soda.

Phil’s mother winked at him.

“Thanks,” said Clint, winking back. He unwrapped the sandwich and wolfed it down in a few bites.

“Our pleasure,” said Heather.

Clint licked his fingers clean. “Gotta dash,” he said.

He jogged back down the steps to the pitch, swigging from the can of soda as he walked past the teams. Everyone was preoccupied with setting up their equipment, and it was only now that Clint had a chance to see the designs the other teams had come up with, and the amount of effort they’d all put in. Or not. Steve’s team had covered their device in a large white sheet so that no one could see it, and Natasha’s team... didn’t seem to have done any research. Clint didn’t need to worry about this. Whether the teams’ designs adhered to the rules would be decided later – and was an integral part of the start of the race.

As he drew level with Phil, Clint raised his hand in a little half-wave. Phil simply nodded back, but the glance that passed between them spoke volumes.

He finished his soda and rejoined his team, but there didn’t seem to be anything for him to do. They’d finished getting ready and were nervously standing around waiting for the show to start. 

Shortly before three, and as the crowds were jostling to fill the remaining seats, Dean Maria Hill appeared, carrying a microphone and followed by a sound engineer and cameraman. She was joined by representatives from all of the schools, who stood behind her.

The scoreboard flickered into life, and at the same time, several screens placed strategically around the pitch began to transmit the feed from the TV cameras. Tony had fought long and hard for these screens several years previously, and with good reason, since it was hard work trying to follow the path of an egg from the seats furthest away from the pitch.

The whole event was a logistical nightmare, actually, and it’d taken Clint a while to realise just how much effort Tony must have put in in previous years when he actually appeared to be acting the fool and doing nothing. Several problems, though, were new this year, and related to having participants from several schools. One of those problems had been finding impartial judges. After much debate, it had been decided that the only people qualified to judge the competition and decide whether the teams met race regulations were representatives from each of the schools, who could vote on any team except their own. Phil was the judge from his school, but since Lauffeson was mentor to the Business School team, he’d had to delegate his duties as judge to another member of staff. Neither of them looked happy about it.

The music over the sound system swelled to a crescendo, then faded out, and realising that the event was about to start, the crowd also fell silent.

Suddenly, a roaring sound filled the stadium, followed by the unmistakable sound of Darcy’s voice.

“Goooooood afternoon, Marivale, and welcome to the fifteenth annual Great Egg Race!”

Tony winced, and Clint smiled. In previous years, Tony had been race commentator, but his duties as mentor meant that he couldn’t do it this year: something which apparently caused him physical pain. The role had instead been offered jointly to Darcy and Sam, although only Darcy had agreed to do it. Sam evidently felt that publicly describing his PhD supervisor’s performance was more than his career was worth, and had opted to look after the music instead.

The announcement continued and Clint started to pay attention again.

“Welcome, yes welcome to you all, and let’s have a round of applause for our wonderful teams!” Darcy paused to allow the spectators to applaud.

“Today, we have teams from four local schools, a team from our very own Community College, and two teams from the University.” Darcy paused again to allow for more clapping. “But before any of you can say ‘hang on, that’s not fair, where’s my team,’ you should know that the two University teams represent two different schools – and they’re mortal enemies. Yes, that’s right ladies and gentlemen, these guys hate each other. Expect sparks to fly! Harsh words to be said! Hair to be pulled!”

Clint glanced over at Lauffeson and caught him staring in his direction, his grin cat-like and feral.

“But before we get started, it’s time to vet the teams. That’s right – our team of judges need to assess our gallant contestants to make sure that they’ve followed all the rules and aren’t about to kill anyone. Take it away, Dean Maria!”

As Maria Hill lifted her microphone to her lips, more music burst from the sound system, drowning her out. The local press took the opportunity to take a few photographs, but failed to catch Maria looking flustered. The music was thankfully brief, and Maria continued as if nothing had happened.

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” said Maria. “And welcome to the university. My name is Maria Hill, and I have the honour of introducing our teams. With me today are our judges, each of them representatives of our schools....” Maria introduced the judges from St Hugh’s, St Hilda’s, Twin Pines (Phil), Sheldon High School, Kalamette Charter School, Community College, and the Business School. She paused between the names to allow supporters of each school – and those polite enough to clap for everyone – to give their applause. “And I will be representative and judge for the History School,” Maria finished.

Clint nodded towards the judges, most of whom he’d met in person, the rest of whom he’d spoken with, or exchanged emails with.

“And now without further ado, let’s meet the teams!” said Darcy.

Clint looked out at the teams arranged in a line across the soccer pitch. There was a tradition of pun names for the teams, so he prepared himself for what was to come next.

“First up, we have the team from St Hugh’s: let’s have a big round of applause for ‘The Idle Pluckers’.”

There was a smattering of applause for the crowd as Maria stepped forward and handed the microphone to Natasha.

“Dr Romanoff, will you explain your team’s design, please,” said Darcy.

Natasha cleared her throat as the judges started to examine St Hugh’s design. “Certainly,” she started. “What we’ve done is pare the design of an aqueduct down to the bare minimum. Eggs are propelled down this channel into the bucket at the far end. By, er, getting rid of any extraneous kit, we hope that we’ve made the overall design faster. Less likely to go wrong.”

Around Natasha, the judges looked unhappy, and with good reason. Natasha had been circumspect and careful with her words. St Hugh’s team had really not done much more than join the water tank to a bucket using a couple of pieces of drainpipe.

As Natasha stopped talking, she handed the microphone back to Maria. Darcy took this as a queue to start talking again.

“Thank you, Dr Romanoff and St Hugh’s!”

Again, the crowd applauded, though with even less enthusiasm, if that were possible. A press photographer swooped in to take a picture of the team from St Hugh’s, and the judges moved on to the second team.

“Our second team is the team from St Hilda’s school for girls. Let’s have a round of applause for ‘Eggspress Delivery’.”

The crowd regained its enthusiasm a little, and Maria handed the microphone to Bruce.

“Dr Banner, if you’ll take us through your team’s design, please,” said Darcy.

“Certainly,” said Bruce. He gestured towards his team’s design. “What we’ve done is put together another simple aqueduct design, but the length is broken up into short sections, put together in a zigzag formation. The sections start high up at the tank, and zigzag down, to finish at the bucket down on the ground. Water cascades from one section to another, taking the eggs with it.”

Clint thought that it resembled a wacky garden feature from a Chinese-inspired garden.

Maria took the microphone back from Bruce, but held it between them so that they could both still use it. “It’s quite an interesting design, Dr Banner. Can you tell us why your team chose this?”

“The short lengths are for portability, mainly,” said Bruce, scratching his head. “We wanted something that’d break down and store really easily. Plus we were using materials we had to hand.”

“And they are?” said Maria.

“Bamboo for the sections that carry the water. And the ‘bucket’ at the end is actually an old flowerpot.”

“So it’s 100% biodegradable?” said Maria, with a smile.

“Yup,” said Bruce. “That’s right.”

“So thank you again, Dr Banner and St Hilda’s!” said Darcy.

The crowd applauded, cautiously at first, but gaining enthusiasm. Again, the press photographer took a picture, and the TV crew got in the way as the judges moved on to the next team. The sound system randomly started to play a few loud, heavy bass beats before growing silent again.

“Our third team is the team from Twin Pines. Let’s have a big round of applause for ‘The Eggsterminators’.”

As the crowd cheered and applauded, Phil grinned at the students from his own school, while Tony beamed at the crowd and held up his arms in salute.

“What’ve you got for us there, Tony?” said Darcy.

“Thanks for the intro Darce,” said Tony, taking the microphone from Maria as Phil stood nervously by her side. “Maestro, please,” he added, pointing in the direction of their design. “Hydraulics. And these.”

“Boats,” said Maria. “You’re going to float the eggs ‘downstream’ in boats?”

“Not float, pump,” said Tony. “They get pumped...” at this, Tony looked meaningfully in Steve’s direction, “...hydraulically downstream in these little boats.”

“Looks pretty cool,” said Darcy, over the speaker system. “Looks a bit like a log flume, actually. An egg flume? Anyway, a big round of applause for Twin Pines, ladies and gentlemen. Next up is Sheldon High School.”

Up in the stands, Clint could see Phil’s family applauding wildly, while Emma jumped up and down, yelling support for her uncle and his school.

Maria made her way across the pitch, followed by the other judges. The photographer and camera crew exchanged places as the photographer remained behind to capture a few shots of Tony being dramatic.

“Sheldon’s team is ‘Close Eggcounters’,” said Darcy. “What’ve you got for us today, Dr Barton?”

Clint chewed nervously on his bottom lip as Maria approached him with the microphone. Part of his brain idly noted that this was the first time he could recall Darcy calling him by his proper name.

Clint stepped to one side and gestured towards his team’s aqueduct. It was structurally very similar to the last time that Clint had seen it; only now Tom had apparently got his wish and had been allowed to ‘pimp it’. Strips of lights hung from the aqueduct’s sides, and Clint fervently hoped that no water got into the electronics.

“It’s another basic aqueduct design, I’m afraid,” said Clint. To his side, Clint saw Tom look offended, until Chloe punched him in the shoulder. “Water from the tank propels the eggs down this, er, slide and into the bucket at the end.”

One of his team tapped him on the shoulder. “Show ‘em our mascot,” said George.

“Mascot?” said Clint.

Jamie appeared at his other side and smiled broadly for the camera. He raised his hands up near his face so that the object he held could easily be seen. “Yeah, we have a team mascot,” he said. “This is Beneggdict Scrambledpatch.”

In his hands was an egg-cup, upon which had been fixed an egg, decorated to look like Benedict Cumberbatch. Clint wouldn’t have believed such a thing were possible.

He groaned.

“Thank you for that, Sheldon High School,” said Darcy, over the sound system. Through the hand Clint now held over his eyes, Clint was vaguely aware of the photographer taking photographs of his team and their ridiculous mascot. The crowd applauded while somewhere over to his right, Tony Stark laughed loudly.

“For the last of our school Teams, we have Kalamette Charter School,” said Darcy. “And there team is The Eggvengers.”

“Do you want to tell us a little about your team, Professor Fury?” said Maria.

“I certainly do,” said Fury, smiling. “And I think you’re going to like it.” He stood back to reveal a large water-wheel, solidly made out of wood, positioned to the side of the school’s barrel. In front of it was a gutter which would transport the eggs into the bucket at the far end.

“Impressive,” said Maria. “That’s a huge wheel.”

“Yeah,” said Fury. “Its circumference is four metres, so the eggs’ll only need to travel down eighteen metres of gutter, rather than twenty, like those guys. Gives us the edge.” His voice at the end of his sentence was deep, booming, and convincing.

“Well okay then,” said Maria. “A big round of applause for Kalamette, ladies and gentlemen.”

The crowd applauded, almost drowning out Darcy’s, “that’s my line.” She recovered quickly. “Next up is Community College, and our very own Steve Rogers,” she said.

As the applause faded away, Steve stood stoically beside his team’s design, still covered by its large white sheet. Clint looked around for clues as to what was going on. Maria didn’t look concerned; her eyebrow quirked into a mischievous expression as she looked at Natasha. Natasha, on her phone, making a quick surreptitious call to who-knows-where.

“And I’m just getting a message ladies and gentlemen,” said Darcy. “Yes, it seems that the next team is The Business School, and their team, Bad Eggs. Could you please tell us a little about your team’s design, Professor Lauffeson.”

Loki’s expression could at best be described as thinly-veiled contempt for everyone else there.

“I’d be delighted,” said Loki, sounding bored. “It really is rather simple.” He gestured towards the equipment, and said nothing at all.

Lauffeson’s team’s design was nothing like that created by any of the other teams. It was a large transparent pipe, hooked up to the tank but with a hole so that an egg could be dropped in. It curled around and around like a spring, and was supported by a frame. Clint knew the instant he saw it that it could be a winner. All the eggs really needed to do was to roll down the pipe and the water would flush them into the bucket at the end.

Lauffeson examined his fingernails in boredom while Maria described what the audience could see before them and on the stadium screens. The team from the Business School watched their leader with expressionless faces. Somehow, Lauffeson’s team didn’t seem to have as many members as the others, which stood to reason if one or more of them had recently been arrested.

The audience applauded, the photographer took his shot, the camera crew moved around to film the team from several angles, and the judges moved on to Pepper’s team.

“And now the team from our very own History School – let’s have a big round of applause for Pepper Potts and Great Eggspectations,” said Darcy.

The crowd, predictably, gave the biggest round of applause so far. Pepper beamed at them, at the photographer, and at the film crew. Her team basked in the applause; Mindie, Kate, and one or two more of Clint’s students in amongst them, all grinning and apparently loving it.

“Nothing quite as elaborate as Professor Lauffeson’s design, I’m afraid,” said Pepper, as Maria leaned in close with the microphone. Another aqueduct.” Their design was very similar to that of Bruce’s team, but unlike their bamboo zigzag design, was extremely elegant. The entire body of their construction seemed to be made from thin metal tubes, upon which sat a polished metal gutter, which zigzagged down to a deep metal dish. The shiny surfaces caught the June sun in a dramatic fashion, and seemed to burn. Although the water from the tanks would surely cool the whole structure down, Clint suspected that right now, the structure was boiling hot. Still, it was by far the most attractive of the designs.

“And you’ve chosen metal for your design?” said Maria, whose mind had obviously followed a similar path to Clint’s.

“Like Bruce, we’ve really just used what was to hand. The Ancient Technology team at the university donated the supplies,” said Pepper.

For Ancient Technology team, thought Clint, read Tony Stark’s garage.

The crowd applauded, the photographer tried to find an angle where the sun’s reflection wouldn’t spoil his shot, and the camera crew made a nuisance of themselves trying to capture everything.

In the relative quiet, Clint quite clearly heard Lauffeson mutter, “Very well then, Mister Rogers, time to unveil your idiotic contraption.”

“And finally, ladies and gentlemen, the team from Community College,” said Darcy. “A big round of applause for The Eggspendables. Captain Rogers, what’ve you got for us?”

“Thanks, Dr Lewis," said Steve, looking over his shoulder at his team, who were reaching for the sheet and grabbing hold of its corners and edges. Steve watched them start to fold the sheet off of the team’s equipment before continuing. “We... er, have gone for something a little unconventional. But it’s based on the ancient technology of cisterns, so it should meet the regulations.”

What was unveiled was obviously not the ‘Mousetrap’ design that Clint had seen from his perch in the rafters. What it actually was was a toilet.

Steve continued his commentary over laughter and applause from the crowd.

“Also, in recognition of Community College’s strong Arts programme, our design pays homage to the artist Duchamp,” said Steve.

“That’s a toilet,” said Darcy, unnecessarily.

“Ceci n’est pas un toilet," muttered one of Steve’s team.

“Yup,” said Steve. “The cistern slash tank of the lavatory is filled by water from the team’s tank. With any luck, we flush the eggs and they get carried by the force of the water right down this drain into the bucket at the end.”

Maria, for once, was speechless, and in the lull in the commentary, the crowd once more burst into a round of applause. Somewhere at the back, someone woof-whistled.

“And that’s our teams!” yelled Darcy. “Now while the judges confer about the team’s designs and see whether they meet race regulations, let me just tell you a little about our school and the history of the competition....”

Clint tuned Darcy out for a few moments and took the opportunity to gaze around at his friends, colleagues, and the school that had become his home. Phil was busy in conversation with the head of Kalamette, while Lauffeson threw a daggers-glance at his colleague from the Business School. Clint looked at the rows of equipment and the large water tanks painted in the colours of their respective schools. Then he looked at the small buckets, which were supposedly going to capture all of this water. Yup, without a shadow of a doubt, things were going to get very wet around here.

“...the Egg Race, of course, was set up in the year 2000 by the Maria Stark foundation as a celebration of the millennium, of several millennia of ancient technology, and of the continuing relevance of this technology today,” said Darcy.

Or, thought Clint, it was set up in the year 2000 by Tony Stark, who wanted to see just how far he could catapult his breakfast.

“The rules are very simple. Each team has three minutes to propel six eggs twenty metres through water, using water power alone. So: no helping things along with your hand. No manual cranking of devices, no battery power, solar power, or, Tony Stark, arc reactor technology. And just as importantly, you may only release one egg at a time. Once your eggs have been released, you may not touch them again until they are in the bucket at the far end.

“Now, there’s a lot of water involved in this race today, so we’re allowing more than one collection bucket per team, and the student helpers are distributing spare buckets right now.

“No team is allowed to interfere with or help any other team, but you are allowed to make repairs to your own equipment while the race is in progress.

“There will be several rounds to the competition. Depending on the total number of teams, either two or three teams will compete against each other at a time. Only one team will be knocked out per round. Points will be awarded for every egg that makes it to the end of the course. In the event that no one manages to complete the course, well, that’s never happened but the closest contenders will be decided by our panel of judges.

“And there’s prizes, ladies and gentlemen. The winning team will get, well, just look at your programmes. There’s like a gazillion prizes down there. And there’s also a prize for the most innovative design – so, winning isn’t everything. In fact, no one that competes here today will go away empty-handed. There’s t-shirts and DVDs for everyone. And hey, you’re all on TV, so what more do you want.”

As Darcy finished her speech, someone, presumably Sam, brought the soundtrack of thudding music back up in volume, and it played uninterrupted for about a minute, until Maria gave a signal by raising her hand.

“And I’m receiving word that the judges have completed their assessment of the teams,” said Darcy.

“Thank you Darcy,” said Maria. “Let me hand you over to our representative from Twin Pines, Principal Phil Coulson.”

There was applause as Phil stepped forward and took the microphone from Maria. “Good afternoon,” said Phil. “The decision of the judges is as follows.” Phil paused and the crowd went silent. “The team from St Hugh’s, ‘The Idle Pluckers’, has been disqualified.”

There was a collective groan from the crowd, and Phil struggled to make himself heard over the noise of muttering.

“By a majority vote,” continued Phil, “It has been decided that this team’s design lacks sufficient merit, and fails to adhere to the spirit of the competition.”

Clint’s gaze turned to the team from St Hugh’s. At their head, Natasha barely concealed a smirk, while her team lashed out at each other and at their own competition entry. Eventually, they strode off into the crowd: some to join their own families, others to leave the grounds altogether. Natasha seemed to feel Clint’s gaze upon her, turned her head slightly, and blinked at him.

Clint was left with the sneaking suspicion that she’d voted against her own team.

Clint turned back to see how Phil was taking this, and when he looked back to where Natasha had been standing, she was gone.

Phil continued. “Of the remaining teams, there was some disagreement among the judges,” here, Phil looked at the representative from the Business School, “about whether a lavatory was man-powered or water-powered.”

At this, there was a range of appropriate noises from the crowd.

“It was decided that a lavatory is water-powered, since no one here would admit to manually assisting their own lavatories when something got stuck in the U-bend.” The crowd laughed at Phil’s deadpan delivery. “Therefore the team from Community College, The Eggspendables, and all other teams have passed the judges’ scrutiny.”

At this, Phil handed the microphone back to Maria, and a couple of the Student Helpers went to stand next to Tony’s water-clock, which would run in conjunction with the more accurate digital displays projected around the pitch. Another student handed Maria a compressed air canister with a horn on the end.

“So without any further ado,” said Darcy, “It’s time to start the race. The first teams to compete are the team from St Hilda’s, Eggspress Delivery, and the team from Twin Pines, The Eggsterminators. Teams, are you ready?”

Everyone looked towards Bruce, Tony, and their teams, and the cameramen positioned themselves so that they could capture both teams.

“On my mark!” said Maria. “Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six....” As Maria counted down, the crowd joined in and counted along with her. “Five. Four. Three. Two. One.” She sounded the horn, as the timer on the screens flashed their 03:00 and started to count down.

Almost immediately, it was mayhem.

The sound system started up an unidentifiable tune with a heavy base beat and the crowd started to cheer and whistle. Bruce stood to one side as the girls from St Hilda’s fumbled with the bung that kept the water inside their tank and eventually pried it free. Tony jumped to one side as one of his team over-enthusiastically pried free their bung, and water gushed out over the secondary tank they would use to power their pump and onto the ground. It seemed to take forever for St Hilda’s to get their eggs in the water, and a similar amount of time for the team from Twin Pines to place their eggs, in their little boats, into their pipework.

All the while, the judges were trying not to cause an obstruction while checking to see that the teams weren’t cheating, while the cameramen seemed to thrive on getting in the way of everything. It took less than thirty seconds for their containers of water to start overflowing onto the grass, at which point there was another mad scramble as team members tried to replace their full containers with the spare buckets that had been provided.

The first of the eggs from St Hilda’s bobbed and swayed down the gulley and dropped from the first, to the second, to the third of their sections of bamboo before the team decided that it was safe to release their second egg. Over at the team from Twin Pines, six little boats containing eggs all bobbed together in a growing swell, but struggled to make their way down the guttering. After a minute, St Hilda’s had their first egg in the bucket, but Twin Pines had none. Their boats, now about four metres from the start line, appeared to be stuck in a traffic jam. The Twin Pines team worked furiously at their pump, but all it seemed to do was slosh water over the edge of the gutter and not force the obstruction further down the pipe.

Maria sounded a whistle: their three minutes were up. The screens flashed 00:00 as the music over the sound system was silenced and the teams struggled to place the bungs back in their tanks to stop the flow of water.

Maria approached Bruce and the team from St Hugh’s, and looked at the eggs collected at the end of their aqueduct. “The team from St Hughes have managed to get three eggs to the end of the course. Three points to St Hugh’s!” Maria yelled into the microphone.

The crowd applauded and whistled as Maria walked over to Tony and the team from Twin Pines. From Clint’s location, it was pretty obvious how badly the team from Twin Pines had done.

“Oh,” said Maria. “The team from Twin Pines have not managed to get any eggs to the end of the course. Bad luck, Twin Pines. You have scored zero points.”

The crowd groaned, and Clint looked over at Phil, to find him watching him. “Bad luck,” he mouthed. Phil shrugged.

Both teams looked exhausted. Both were also soaking wet. St Hilda’s were bedraggled yet jubilant; Twin Pines were resigned, slapping each other on the back. One contestant took an egg and cracked it over one of his friends before the judges stepped in and separated them.

“The team from St Hilda’s goes through to the second round. Twin Pines, I’m sorry, but you’re out of the competition,” said Darcy. A burst of music started up again and was very quickly silenced.

“Next up, we have the team from Sheldon High School, Close Eggcounters, and the team from Kalamette Charter School, The Eggvengers. Are you ready, teams?” said Darcy.

Clint looked over at Fury, standing next to their giant water-wheel. Fury grinned back at him. Clint dashed up to Jamie, standing next to their water tank as Maria began her countdown again.

“...Three. Two. One!” said Maria, and blew her whistle. Music started with a roar.

Jamie released the bung from the tank and water spurted out into their guttering. Chloe and Tom each put an egg in the water, while Sean, George and Jenny stood nearby waiting for their turn to do the same. As the first egg bobbed and rolled its way over the join between the first and second pieces of pipe, Chloe and Tom dashed to the end of their equipment to stand by to replace the buckets as they filled up. Once all six eggs were in the water, there was very little for them to do other than keep the flow going and change full buckets for empty ones.

As their final egg was released into the water, Clint chanced a look over at Fury and the entry from Kalamette. Their water-wheel spun so fast and was so large that their team was in danger of getting their fingers caught in it. Their eggs were racing down the guttering much, much faster than Sheldon’s, but as Clint watched, one of their team misjudged the placement of an egg, and it was whipped out of her fingers to land on the grass. The lightness of the egg told Clint that these were blown eggs – the solution that Sheldon High School had also come up with as a way to make their eggs float. Distracted by watching Kalamette root around for spare eggs to use, Clint missed the sight of the first of their eggs going into their bucket.

“And that’s time!” shouted Maria, blowing her whistle. The screens flashed 00:00 once more and the music faded away. Clint ran to the other end of the course and counted the eggs Tom and Chloe held up for him. Three. Three had been enough for St Hilda’s to win their round. Three had to be enough, right?

Clint barely noticed the judges and photographer until they were walking away and Maria was speaking into the microphone again. “Sheldon High School has managed to get three eggs to the end of the course. Three points to Sheldon High School!” The crowd cheered. “But Kalamette Charter School have got four eggs to the end of the course, so Kalamette win that round with four points!”

“Kalamette go through to the next round,” said Darcy.

Again, Clint glanced over at Phil. “Bad luck,” Phil mouthed at him. Clint shrugged back.

The music started up again and gave everyone a chance to catch their breath. After about a minute, Darcy’s voice was heard over the sound system.

“Next up, we have three teams: The team from Community College, The Eggspendables, and both teams from the university: the team from the Business School, Bad Eggs, and the team from the History School, Great Eggspectations. After this, there’ll be a short recess while we clear away the equipment from the teams who are out of the race. You can use this time to get a snack. Buy a soda. Go nuts. So – are you ready teams?”

“Counting down from Ten... nine... eight... seven... six... five... four... three... two... one!” said Maria, and sounded her horn. If the rounds where two teams were competing against each other were mayhem, three teams were nothing short of chaos. With two cameramen to film three teams, and the added noise, splashing water, and running around of students, it was only the stadium screens and overlying commentary that made it possible to follow this round properly.

Steve’s team lined up beside their strange lavatory, and began to flush their eggs down the pan. Someone from Loki’s team climbed their stepladder and fed eggs into their curled tube while other team members held the structure in place. Pepper’s team began to place eggs into their aqueduct, but it was clear that the structure was hot to the touch, even when filled with cool water. Clint split his attention between the teams, the clock, the screens, and Darcy’s ongoing commentary.

“And it looks like The Eggspendables have got their first egg into the bucket! Yes, that’s right, come on teams. Bad Eggs are close behind, but so are Great Eggspectations. Who’s it going to be? Argh! Bad Eggs have got it by a nose.”

Lauffeson grinned evilly, and stared directly at Pepper. It was clear that she found his complete disregard for his own team distracting, and in turn, stopped watching what her own team were doing.

“Ouch,” said Kate, one of Pepper’s team, and Lauffeson smirked. However, his amusement was cut short when there was no one to hold their team’s ladder, and both ladder and the team member at the top of it started to wobble dramatically.

“You appear to be short-staffed, Loki,” said Pepper, conversationally. “Did one of your team members lose their way?”

“Better things to do,” said Lauffeson, throwing out a hand to steady the ladder himself. Not expecting this, the team member at the top of the ladder overbalanced and threw his hands out to the sides of the ladder to save himself. The egg that he’d been holding flew through the air and shattered against the metal side of the History School’s aqueduct.

“Oh, god,” said Mindie, standing nearby, preparing to replace their team’s nearly-full bucket. “Oh, god, that’s rancid.” She dropped the bucket and backed away.

Several other members of the Great Eggspectations team were also backing away from the shattered egg, while the remainder tried to keep their eggs in transit down the aqueduct to the bucket. Lauffeson’s team members, distracted by the incident, attempted to watch what was going on while trying to stay the course. All the while, Steve’s team from Community College kept working; flushing their eggs down their lavatory and watching them get driven all the way to the end of the course.

“Put the bucket back,” snapped Pepper, and Mindie quickly did as she was told. “My god, is that egg rotten? It is, isn’t it?”

Pepper scowled at Loki, who raised his eyebrows. “The team is called Bad Eggs,” he said. “We aim to deliver. Literally.”

“Mindie, can you wash that down with some water? Please?” said Pepper.

“And that’s three... two... one... time’s up! Said Darcy, as Maria blew her whistle. “Let’s see how they’ve done!”

Pepper surreptitiously walked up to Maria and whispered in her ear. Clint, master of lip-reading, caught every word.

“Bad Eggs, Maria? Can’t we get him for this?”

“No,” said Maria. “It’s not against the rules.”

“But surely....” said Pepper.

“Sorry, Pepper. Nothing I can do.”

Before the scores could be given, a disturbance was heard from the side of the pitch and a man rushed out of the crowd and up to them, shouting as he did so. “Cheater! He’s a cheater! He cheated!”

There was something vaguely familiar about this man, but Clint couldn’t put his finger on it.

The man pointed between Lauffeson and one of his team-members. “...saw him do it. On the screen. At about two minutes. While this guy grabbed the ladder and created a distraction,” the man pointed at Loki. “This other guy dropped an egg into the bucket. I saw it.”

Mindie cringed. “No, dad, no,” she said.

With a start, Clint realised that this was Mindie’s father: the original Tanner of Tanner’s stores. No longer as dishevelled as before, but still not the kind of person you’d want to meet in a dark alley.

Mr Tanner pointed his finger in Loki’s direction. “Play back the tape,” he said in a wavering voice.

Maria assessed the situation and strode off purposefully, handing her microphone to Pepper as she did so.

“And it appears we have a slight technical hitch,” said Darcy. “Bear with us just a moment while we... what? What’s that Maria? Oh, hang on.” Darcy’s microphone cut out and Sam started up the music again.

“Dad, please,” said Mindie in a wheedling voice.

“It’s okay, honey,” Mr Tanner said. He failed to sound soothing.

“Just go, will you?” she pleaded.

“In a minute. It’s okay. I won’t make a scene. I promise.”

“Yes, just go away and let the judges do their job, you irritating pleb,” muttered Loki.

“You what?” said Roy Tanner, stepping up to Lauffeson.

“Dad, no,” said Mindie, now casting a gaze in Clint’s direction. Clint looked around. Still no sign of Maria. The judges were hovering nearby, wondering whether they should interfere; Bruce, Tony and his other colleagues no doubt wondered the same thing.

The screens flickered and the words ‘instant replay’ flashed up on the screen. The crowd stilled and grew quiet as they watched the video play. The quality wasn’t good and the angle was strange, but the evidence was clear. As one of the team members changed a full bucket for an empty one, something white fell out of his shirt sleeve and into the water.

“See!” yelled Roy Tanner, and poked Lauffeson hard in the chest. “Cheater!”

“Now see here, you oik,” said Lauffeson, and pushed him back.

It was a light touch; a flick of a hand against one of Tanner’s shoulders, but no doubt Tanner had been expecting worse and he took a step back, stumbled, and fell against the History School’s delicate metal aqueduct. There were a few seconds when time appeared to stand still; Roy Tucker falling backwards in slow motion, and then the aqueduct crumbled beneath him and he fell onto his back on the ground. Pepper gasped and put a hand to her mouth, while Clint and Bruce couldn’t restrain themselves any longer and rushed over to see if there was anything they could do to help. Campus security was here now, too: wondering whether to dive in, and wondering who they should actually be taking away.

Tanner picked himself up and dusted stray bits of aqueduct from his clothes. “You haven’t heard the last of this,” he said. For a second, it looked like Tanner was going to retaliate, and then he saw the look on his daughter’s face.

“True,” said Maria, approaching them and taking her microphone back from Pepper, while the screens around the pitch reverted to their usual adverts. “Conferring with the judges,” Maria said into the microphone, and turned it off.

Sam, taking his cue from what he could see happening below him, started the music up again, which just happened to be something completely inappropriate.

Maria and the judges walked a short distance off, and had a very brief, very heated discussion, that the camera crew and photographer found fascinating. After less than a minute, Maria’s microphone clicked back into life.

“And by a unanimous decision, Bad Eggs, the team from the Business School, has been disqualified for cheating,” Maria announced.

“Unanimous decision,” said Bruce. “Really?”

“Even your own school not sticking by you for this one?” said Clint.

“You haven’t heard the last of this,” said Lauffeson, and stalked off the pitch and out of the grounds, leaving his team looking after him in disbelief.

The crowd jeered and booed, but there was very little anyone could do. Campus security decided that there was nothing they could do either, and went back to wherever they’d come from. Somewhere in the midst of all of this, Mindie edged closer to her father and took his hand.

While Pepper finally examined the ruins of her team’s aqueduct in dismay, Maria tried to return the crowd’s attention to the competition. “And the scores for this round!” yelled Maria.

The crowd woof-whistled and cheered and Darcy finally remembered she was supposed to be commentating. “Quiet, please, for the judges,” she said. “Maria Hill, the scores for this round, please.”

“Thank you Darcy,” said Maria. “And the scores for this round are as follows. The team from Community College, The Eggspendables, managed to get five of their eggs to the end of the course – and I’m reliably informed that the only reason why it wasn’t the full six eggs was because one of them was, er, smashed in transit.” The crowd cheered and applauded at this, and Maria turned to Pepper and their now-demolished aqueduct. “Great Eggspectations, the team from our very own History School, managed to get four eggs to the end of their course. So, four points to Great Eggspectations.”

“Now, ordinarily only one team is eliminated per round,” said Darcy. “However....”

“However,” continued Maria. “When a team is disqualified, they are deemed not to have taken part in the competition – and forfeit all rights to any prizes that they may have received. So that means congratulations, Community College, you’ll be going through to the semi-final against St Hilda’s team Eggspress Delivery, and Kalamette Charter School’s team The Eggvengers. And commiserations, History School and Great Eggspectations, but still well done with your fourth place.”

There was a long, drawn-out round of applause from the crowd at this, and not a few shouts of commiseration.

“It’s okay,” said Pepper. She gave a shrug. “It’s not like we could salvage this, anyway.”

“And now it’s time for a break,” announced Darcy. “Twenty minutes, ladies and gentlemen, to stretch your legs and purchase some of our delicious sausages-on-a-stick. Join us again after the break for more fun and frolics!”

Loud music thudded out of the speakers, only just masking Darcy’s final “I’m glad that’s all over,” before her microphone clicked off.

Clint looked down the length of the field at the various teams. This twenty minutes would be used quite productively by most of them to pack up their equipment and disperse to the seating to watch the rest of the race with their friends and family.

“Sorry, guys,” he said to his team, who were already busy packing up.

“That’s okay,” said Tom. “We still get something, right? And we’ll all be in the DVD.”

“Yeah,” said Clint. “T-shirts, and something else, I think.”

“Well, it was still a good day,” said Tom, graciously.

“It’s not finished yet, moron,” said Chloe.

“Come on,” said Jamie. “Let’s get this packed up. My mom’ll be over here to help out if I don’t get this packed up fast enough.”

“Need a hand?” said Clint.

“Nah, you’re alright,” said Tom, once again speaking for all of them.

“Okay then,” said Clint. Actually, he was bursting to go to the lavatory, and the twenty minute break would give him just enough time to use the toilets in the department, rather than wait in line with the event attendees at the portaloos lined up on the edge of the next field.

He gave his team a salutary wave and started to walk briskly down the line towards the exit. Phil was busy, he could see, taking a break from his duties as judge to help his team pack everything away while Tony lurked nearby obstructing everyone. Mindie was escorting her father back to the stands while Pepper assisted her team in carrying everything off the pitch, while Lauffesson’s team were nowhere to be seen and their cleanup was being carried out by a group of student helpers. Kalamette, St Hilda’s and Community College all appeared to be checking their equipment to make sure that it could cope with the rigours of another round. As Clint got to the end of the line, he realised that Natasha’s team, St Hugh’s, appeared to have cleaned their things away while the race was actually taking place, and nothing remained to show that they’d ever been there apart from their water tank.

Speaking of which, where was Natasha?

“Okay if I walk back with you?” said Bruce, appearing to Clint’s right. “I mean, I assume you’re heading back to the department?”

“Bathroom break,” said Clint.

“Right.”

Bruce appeared to be suffering in the heat. Sweat trickled down his face, and his breath came in short puffs as he struggled to get it under control.

“You okay?” Clint asked.

“Yeah, let’s just, er, walk, okay?” said Bruce. As they reached the edge of the pitch, he turned to Clint. “I, er, misjudged my medication this morning. I’m suffering a little.”

“I meant what I said,” said Clint. “If you need any help?”

“No,” said Bruce. “I just need another shot, is all. Just give me five minutes.”

“Well, okay,” said Clint, not wanting to belabour his offer of help.

They separated at Bruce’s door, and Clint went to the bathroom while Bruce went to sort out his medication.

Knowing that he would be relegated to the stands for the next part of the event, Clint took his time in the bathroom. He looked at his reflection in the mirror as he splashed water on his face. Who’d have thought it? Both university teams eliminated before the final. Oh well, at least Steve’s team was still in the race, and the whole event was good publicity for the university.

He walked back towards Bruce’s office on his way out, intending to collect the man and escort him back to his team. Just before he reached Bruce’s door however, he heard raised voices and stopped short.

“What was it, I wonder, that attracted you to them?” said Loki’s sly voice. “Their youth? Their innocence?”

“Stop it,” said Bruce. “You know I didn’t....”

“Ah, well, that depends on who you ask, doesn’t it?” said Loki. “I’m sure we can find some... witnesses to your crimes. You’ll never work again, you know.”

Clint decided that he’d heard enough. He donned his most casual expression and strode into Bruce’s office. There was Bruce, sitting in his office chair, shirt still untucked from where he’d no doubt administered his injection. Loki leaned towards him over his desk, deceptively casual.

“All these toys?” Lauffeson now gestured to the hordes of penguins littering Bruce’s office. “Gifts give in gratitude? For what? Surely not for teaching people the history of democracy. Of fairness.”

“Bruce, time to go,” said Clint.

“Be right there,” said Bruce, sounding just as pained as he’d done before he’d arrived in his office. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead and he swiped it away. His eyes flashed green, reflecting the glass shade of the lamp on his desk.

“And you?” said Loki, turning his attention towards Clint. “People must wonder how someone so young got this job. Over one hundred applicants, I hear. What did you do, to prove that you were.... Just. That. Good.”

“Enough!” roared Bruce, and sprung up from his chair to tower over Loki. Bruce, a slight, short man, grown somehow larger, expanded with the fury of the situation and roaring his rage into Loki’s face. Loki unconsciously took a step backwards.

A crash from the corridor stopped them all in their tracks.

Natasha strode confidently into the room, pushing a handcuffed man in front of her. One of his eyes was puffy and swollen. “Am I missing the party?” she said.

Clint turned his gaze back to Bruce, and the trick of the light corrected itself, and Bruce was his normal size again.

“Professor Lauffeson, I believe you’ve met Kevin. Kevin, I’m sure you know Professor Lauffeson,” said Natasha. “Kevin’s just been telling me a very interesting story,” she continued. “Which we don’t have time for now, because some of us actually have a competition to run.” Natasha smiled, and if Clint had thought that Loki’s smile was sly and fox-like, it was nothing to Natasha’s inscrutable smirk.

She pushed Kevin forward into the already-cramped room, and he let out a short groan as he collided with Bruce’s desk. A stack of papers slid sideways and Bruce deftly rescued them, like he’d done hundreds of times before.

“Bruce, Clint?” said Natasha. “Time for you to go.”

“But...” started Clint.

“No,” said Natasha, shutting down anything Clint was about to say. “Gentlemen, please?”

Bruce looked at Natasha, and made a decision. “Don’t make a mess,” he said. He locked his desk drawer and followed Clint out of his office, to where several police officers were waiting.

“We’ll take it from here,” one of them said.

“I need to lock the door,” said Bruce. “I mean, after.”

“Later,” said Clint. “Right now, we need to be somewhere else.”

“But....”

“Later,” one of the police officers told him. Clint caught a quick glimpse of Loki and his accomplice being escorted out of Bruce’s office: both of them now in handcuffs.

Bruce tucked in his shirt as they walked back towards the soccer pitch. “You’ll be sure to tell me what that was about? When you find out?” said Bruce.

“I’m sure we’ll hear something later,” said Clint, though he wasn’t entirely certain they’d ever hear all of it.

Back at the stands, Clint slipped into a spare seat beside Phil’s sister, and instantly sought Phil out in the crowd. Phil’s father clapped him on the shoulder and someone else passed him a soda. Over the noise of the music and crowd, Clint registered their appreciation and commiserations and felt a warm glow as he remembered what it was like to be part of a family.

Up on the field, things were looking very different. Bare patches of flattened grass were the only signs that four other teams had once been there. Remaining were the bamboo aqueduct of St Hilda’s, the waterwheel of Kalamette, and the surreal toilet of Community College. Student helpers scurried about removing debris and re-filling the teams’ water-tanks while the teams themselves took refreshments and were interviewed by the film crew and local press. The only member of staff, in fact, now on the field was Tony Stark, in his metal suit, stirring up the crowd and getting them to stamp and sing along to Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’.

As Bruce re-joined his team, the music stopped with a scraping sound – an effect made to sound like someone had scraped a stylus across a vinyl record.

“And thank you Tony Stark!” yelled Darcy, as Tony strode off the pitch, waving. “And welcome back to round two!”

Darcy quickly reintroduced the three remaining teams as the team members went back to their equipment, and then it was time for Maria to give the countdown again, as all three teams prepared to race against each other. Now, however, the judges did not loiter close to the teams, but sat back to enjoy the show.

Clint, finally, did likewise.

“...Three. Two. One...” said Maria Hill, and sounded her horn. The display screens flashed and started to show the action, the teams dashed around, a flurry of activity, and Clint found himself laughing and gasping along with everyone else.

Down on the pitch, one of Kalamette’s eggs was catapulted by their water-wheel and hit one of their team on the chest, where it shattered. The team then struggled to get one of their spare eggs into the water and along the course. St Hilda’s aqueduct was working just fine until one of their team-members nudged it, and then something became displaced and water started to cascade onto the grass. Things didn’t appear to be going that smoothly for community college, either. One of their team pumped furiously on the flushing mechanism of their toilet, but to no avail: apparently, there was a blockage; something that seemed even more entertaining to the crowd when Steve reached deftly beneath their stand and retrieved a bright red plunger.

“And that’s time!” shouted Maria, blowing her whistle. The screens flashed 00:00 to indicate the end of the round, and once more the music faded away. “Judges!”

Unnoticed by almost everyone, Natasha slipped quietly into a seat beside Pepper.

As the judges examined the contents of the teams’ buckets, the screens replayed parts of the competition.

“And the points are as follows,” said Maria. “St Hilda’s Eggspress Delivery managed to get three eggs into their buckets, so that’s three points to St Hilda’s. Well done, St Hilda’s.”

“Thanks,” said Bruce. “We had a bit of trouble there, but I think we fixed it.”

“Kalamette’s The Eggvengers, how did you do?” said Maria. “Kalamette, you only managed to get two eggs to the end of the course. What happened, Kalamette?” Maria held out her microphone for Fury.

“Somebody,” Fury scowled at the entire team rather than anyone in particular, “broke two of our eggs, while somebody else trod on one of our boxes of spares.”

“Not so good,” one of his team translated.

“So two points to Kalamette!” The crowd cheered and Clint took a sharp intake of breath and waited for the score from Steve’s team. Megan nudged him in the side.

“Are you holding your breath?” she asked.

“No,” said Clint.

He totally was.

“Well, Community College and The Eggspendables, how did you do?” Maria held out the microphone for Steve, who shrugged.

“We had a bit of a blockage issue, but I think we did okay.”

“How many is that, judges?” said Maria. “Three eggs. Okay! That’s three points to Community College!”

A short burst of music played over the speakers as Maria made her way back down the line.

“And that’s St Hilda’s Eggspress Delivery and Community College’s Eggspendables through to the final,” said Darcy. “Bad luck, Kalamette, but well done for getting third place.”

The pupils from Kalamette patted each other on the back and went to sit at the side of the pitch.

“But it’s not all bad news for Kalamette,” continued Darcy. “As third place, they all win a ton of Amazon vouchers. Enough to keep them in George R. R. Martin books for years. So a big round of applause for Kalamette.”

To build up the suspense and give the two remaining teams time to re-fuel, Darcy reminded the crowds what the prizes were. As she did so, Tony reappeared, now in his suit once more, followed at a slow pace by a small, flatbed truck, on which was arranged the second place mountain bikes, the first place iPads, and a poster supposed to represent college bursaries. In a prominent position in the centre was a shiny silver trophy.

The truck parked at the side of the pitch, and Tony clambered laboriously up beside the prizes. “This is what you’re competing for, guys,” he said, picking up the trophy and holding it above his head. His voice echoed from the speakers around the pitch, because of course, Tony had hacked the sound system.

Thor, who had been driving the truck, got out and headed over to the front row to sit close to Natasha and Pepper.

Darcy attempted to regain control of the commentary. “Eh-hem,” she said. “And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the final competition. St Hilda’s, are you ready?” Darcy paused, and the pause was filled with cheers and one or two wolf-whistles. “Community College, are you ready?” She paused again, and the same thing happened.

“On my mark, teams,” said Maria, and began the countdown for the final time, the crowd all counting down with her. “...Three. Two. One.” Maria sounded her horn.

Almost immediately St Hilda’s ran into difficulty. In carefully replacing the bung of their tank after the previous round, someone had apparently hammered it in too far, and several members of the team tried and failed for nearly the entire first minute of the round to get the bung out. Finally, it was prised free and went sailing through the air to raucous cheers, followed by a great jet of water. Things didn’t seem to be going that smoothly for Steve’s team, either. Someone had apparently been forcing the lever that worked the flush, and now the cistern of the toilet seemed to be taking a long time to fill. Consequently, for what seemed like vast stretches of their three minutes, the drain that transported the egg to the bucket was almost completely dry.

Finally, Maria blew her whistle, and the crowds cheered and whistled along with her.

“Judges, the final scores, please!” said Darcy.

“For St Hilda’s, three points!” said Phil. He paused. “For Community College, two points!”

As the crowd cheered and applauded, Steve nodded, walked over to Bruce, and shook his hand.

“St Hilda’s are the winners!” said Darcy. “Second place, Community College,” she added unnecessarily.

“Congratulations to everyone who took part,” said Maria. “If the first, second and third prize winners could please step up, Professor Stark will award the prizes.”

The teams lined up beside the pitch to still more applause, and Tony made quick work of handing out almost everything from the back of the truck.

“Yes, yes,” said Maria, “If I could just have some quiet, please?” She waited for the noise from the crowd to die down a little and then continued. “We have one additional prize to hand out this afternoon: the prize for the most innovative design. And I believe our judges have finished conferring?”

Several of the judges nodded at this, and one stepped forward with an envelope. Maria made a great show of opening the envelope and reading its contents.

“The prize for most innovative design goes to... Community College, for their imaginative use of household plumbing!” said Maria, smiling broadly.

Steve came forward to claim the prize on behalf of his team, which turned out to be a cheque to be used to buy equipment that Community College was in desperate need of. 

There was very little to be done after this. Clint rejoined his team and thanked them all again for their hard work, and shortly after that, the crowds began to disperse as people headed home.

“I’m disappointed,” said Tony Stark. “None of the cool tech won.” He waved his hand in Bruce’s direction.

“Sorry,” said Bruce.

“No you’re not,” said Tony.

“Everyone enjoyed themselves,” said Steve. “It was a good day. I’m sorry that you don’t feel as if we’re... pandering to your every whim.”

Tony huffed. “Now you mention it, my whim is feeling distinctly un-pandered right now.”

“Moving swiftly on,” said Phil. “What’s happening about this?” He gestured to indicate the expanse of litter that remained behind after the crowds had left.

“Clint’s got that all under control. That’s right, isn’t it?” said Tony.

“I say we take off and nuke this sucker from orbit,” said Clint.

“Seriously,” said Phil.

Clint shrugged. “The student helpers are taking care of it. We’re paying them extra.” A movement caught his eye, and he watched the slow approach of Phil’s niece Emma, dragging Natasha over to join them.

“Your friend said we could all go out for ice cream,” said Emma.

Natasha shrugged a small, one-shouldered shrug. “If it’s alright with you.”

“If your mom says it’s okay,” said Phil.

“So, kiddo,” said Tony, “you enjoy that?”

Emma nodded.

“What was your favourite part?” said Tony.

Emma appeared to think long and hard about this.

“I liked it when that girl’s dad punched that guy,” she said.

Tony looked offended. “Seriously?” he said. “That was your favourite?”

Emma nodded frantically, and as Tony’s pout grew more pronounced, the assembled staff members burst out laughing.


	29. The After-Party

Clint was slumped over a glass of beer in Thor’s bar when Phil finally joined him. “I am going to sit here and drink beer until my butt grows moss,” he said.

Phil chuckled and patted him on the shoulder. “Clean-up crew not going so well?”

“Oh yeah. They’re doing it now. Finally,” said Clint. “Your school? Everyone okay?”

“All gone home now, finally,” said Phil, casting a sideways look at Tony.

“Hey, don’t blame me if they all wanted selfies,” said Tony.

It was early evening, and the bar was packed with staff and students, both mingling freely between the usually segregated areas.

“We should make a move in a few minutes. If we’re going to meet my folks for dinner,” said Phil.

“Yeah,” said Clint.

The arm that had been touching Clint’s shoulder slid round him as Phil sat down at his side. “What you looking at?” asked Phil.

“Everything,” said Clint, and gave a tired smile over the top of his drink.

He was looking at Phil’s nieces making friends with Mindie and her family. At Bruce, looking around expectantly and smiling when Bucky entered and made his way towards him. He was looking at Pepper, deep in conversation with Darcy at the bar and laughing uproariously with her. At Sam, watching Darcy with a curious expression on his face. At Steve, nudging Tony’s leg under the table when he thought no one else was looking, then helping himself to Tony’s bowl of snacks. And he was looking at Thor, peeling off notes from a tightly-wrapped bundle of twenties and handing them to Natasha.

Natasha gave him a satisfied grin, shook her head, then sauntered over to join their table. Pepper followed her and they crowded around.

“When you’ve had a chance to unwind, we should plan our holiday,” said Phil. “And what we want to do on our birthdays.”

“I’m easy,” said Clint. “Let’s sit around in our underpants eating pizza and drinking beer.”

Tony grimaced, although that could have been because he’d just discovered that he had no snacks left.

“I was thinking Venice,” said Phil.

“We can sit around in our underpants eating pizza and drinking beer in Venice, too,” said Clint.

“We can,” Phil agreed.

“What’re you talking about?” said Natasha, pulling up a seat.

“Doing something other than work,” said Clint.

“Sounds good,” said Natasha.

“I hear there are places in the world where they do that,” said Tony.

“You’ve got two days to submit your expenses before the end of the semester, remember,” said Pepper.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Clint, waving over at Darcy in a vain attempt to get table service for a change.

“I’ll get the drinks,” said Natasha, and slid out of her seat and sauntered back towards the bar.

“I don’t want to know where she got the cash, do I?” said Pepper.

“Probably not,” said Clint and Phil simultaneously.

“So are you going to tell us? About Lauffeson?” said Phil. Tony and Steve turned a little in their seats, eager to hear the news.

“Oh, that,” said Pepper. “Well, he’s out of custody already,” she said. “But there’ll be an emergency board meeting tomorrow, and I think it’s highly likely that he’ll be suspended.”

“Just suspended?” said Tony.

“We’ll see,” said Pepper.

“Even I’ve been suspended,” Tony tutted and took another swig from his drink.

“But why was he arrested?” said Phil.

“Well, this is really Natasha’s story, but, well, in the circumstances, I’m sure she won’t mind. You remember that someone was arrested for breaking in at Thor’s Brewery?” said Pepper.

“This the guy who didn’t join the rest of his team for the race?” said Clint.

“That’s the guy,” said Pepper. “Well, it turns out that once someone mentioned to him that anything he said could be taken down as evidence and used in a court of law, the guy couldn’t stop talking.”

Natasha returned carrying a tray laden down with drinks. She set it on the table. “Are you telling my story?” she asked.

Pepper nodded, and took her drink from the tray.

“And you know this how?” said Tony.

Natasha raised an eyebrow.

“Forget he asked,” said Steve.

“They’ve got dirt on him. Loki. A lot of dirt. So we’ll just have to wait and see if any of it sticks,” said Pepper.

“And I will drink to that,” said Natasha.

“Now,” said Tony, whipping out his phone. “On to important business. Exam sweepstakes. Which member of staff has the most students who got a distinction in their exams? I can give the best odds on you, currently, Nat. The rest of you guys, well, I’ll email you.”

“Now, really,” said Pepper.

“Fifty on Clint,” said Phil.

“You’re on,” said Tony.

Clint leaned back in his chair and watched the world go by. After a few minutes, Phil put a hand on his knee. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” said Clint. “I’m just sorry, okay?”

“What for?” said Phil.

Clint shrugged. “I could’ve spent more time with you this year.”

“Could you?” said Phil. “You were working your ass off all year. In fact we both were, so don’t sweat it.”

“Huh,” said Clint.

“No, seriously,” said Phil, gripping Clint just that little bit harder. “I understand. Believe me. It’s our jobs. Honestly, I’ve been thinking about how lucky I am.”

Clint made a noise in the back of his throat.

“Clint,” said Phil, and turned a little in his seat so that he was staring into Clint’s eyes.

“Get a room,” said Tony.

“No seriously,” Phil whispered. “This time last year, I was just moving cross-country, about to start a new job, entering negotiations with lawyers about the breakdown of my marriage, and wondering how the hell I was going to cope with my new life. I have to say, I think it turned out pretty well.”

Clint grinned. “So. Venice, huh?” he said.


	30. Epilogue

“Next week, we’ll be looking at colonization,” said Clint, picking up the course handbook and waving it at his students. “The ancient sources and everything else you’ll need to read is listed in here. And colonization is one of the essay questions you can choose from, so you might want to pay special attention.”

There was a loud scraping noise as students pushed their chairs back. Clint thought he heard a few grumbling to each other as they packed up and left the room.

As the last student left, Clint wiped down the whiteboard and packed away his notes.

“Are you free?” said Pepper, appearing in the doorway. “That’s right, isn’t it? You have a free period next?”

“Yup,” said Clint, with an air of finality. It was only a few weeks into the new semester and already he was exhausted.

“It’s time,” said Pepper.

“Now?” said Clint, surprised. As he looked at Pepper, she nodded and smiled.

“In lecture theatre one, five minutes,” she said.

“Right,” said Clint. He grinned back at her, slung his bag over his shoulder and headed for the lecture theatre.

Of all the classes Tony taught, this was the one he went to great pains to prevent Clint from finding out about. This was the week where Tony’s ancient technology juniors learnt about early weapons technology.

This was the week they learnt about the bow.

Clint slipped into the back of the theatre as Tony threw handouts at a few latecomers.

Tony was on fine form as usual, even though he clearly considered the bow a bit basic and in need of serious modification before it became ‘interesting’. Clint, hiding in amongst a few of the students he’d taught the previous year, enjoyed Tony’s combined PowerPoint presentation and tirade and had almost forgotten that he was supposed to be hiding when Tony stopped dead in the middle of a sentence.

“You know what?” said Tony, gazing off into the crowd.

The students, naturally, remained silent.

“I’m not the guy to talk to about this.”

Silence.

“But guess what? We actually have an expert on this crap on staff.”

Silence.

“So if any of you are interested, and I can’t see why you would be and I will naturally ostracise you if you are, go talk to Dr Barton. In fact, go pester him. Annoy him instead.”

A student’s bony finger poked Clint in the side, and Clint slumped down further in his seat.

Tony, down at the front of the room, looked momentarily distracted and slipped a hand into his pocket. “Anyway,” he said, turning to face the whiteboard. For a few seconds, Clint lost track of what Tony’s hands were doing. “He’s written a book on it, it’s on the syllabus. Buy it. I mean, if you’re into that kind of thing.”

Clint’s phone started to chime noisily from inside his pocket, and he struggled but failed to silence it before the rest of the room could hear.

“Or you could just ask him right now,” said Tony, turning to face the class once more, and grinning his widest grin. “I mean, if you can find him.”

“Well, that was good,” said Clint, once the class had ended and he and Tony were walking back to their offices.

“Naturally,” said Tony, preening. “So maybe you can cover for me this afternoon? I mean, I know there’s no scheduling clash.”

“Seriously?” said Clint. “With no notice?”

“Yeah, about that,” said Tony. “Emergency.”

Tony had apparently timed this statement to occur directly outside Pepper’s office. He rapped sharply on the door, then yelled, “Pepper, get out here.”

“Always a pleasure,” said Pepper, opening her door. “Half a mo?” she said. She closed the door, but a few seconds later opened it again, and followed Clint and Tony down the corridor.

To Clint’s surprise, they walked past both Tony and Clint’s office and headed towards Maria’s part of the building. “Where are we going?” said Clint.

“We, Pepper and I,” said Tony, “Are going to a meeting. A super secret meeting of the board of directors, which you know nothing about. And you didn’t hear it from me.” He held out a hand to Clint, who automatically held out his palm in return. Tony dropped a key into it.

“I’m trusting you with this,” said Tony. “And believe me, if you touch anything, anything at all you’re not supposed to touch, I will know. Anyway, my lecture notes are in my office, and I realise that you may be surprised that I keep such a thing. Use them wisely, or not. I don’t care. Two classes on the bow, I know you can do this without batting an eyelid. Let me know how it goes.”

“This meeting,” said Clint. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with Lauffeson, would it?”

“Absolutely not,” said Tony. “This absolutely wouldn’t be a meeting to decide whether to increase the length of Loki’s sabbatical slash suspension or remove his tenure.”

Pepper raised an eyebrow in Tony’s direction, but stayed silent.

“I mean, it’s not like he’s brought the Business School into disrepute or anything. Gross misconduct. Virtually wrecked the reputation of the whole university. My university, which I build with my own two hands.”

Pepper coughed delicately, but then broke her own silence. “By rights, this should have happened over summer, only....”

“You had to find him first?” finished Clint.

“We still don’t know where he is,” said Pepper. “The rest of his staff have been covering for him.”

“Technically, you’re supposed to tell someone they’re fired before you give their job to somebody else,” said Tony. “Management are strange like that. So,” Tony turned to face Clint and clapped his hands to Clint’s shoulders. “Go, my son. Fly, be free. Lecture like the hounds of hell are after you. Or something.”

“You’ll be magnificent,” said Pepper.

With that, Pepper and Tony turned and walked off towards their meeting.


End file.
